These are not gigged bass

[MOPanfisher]

I never claimed they need to be harvested, but then why do bass need to be caught.  Over populating of any species is not a good thing, however not all overpopulation severly damages the food chain by any means, dpending upond several factors.  I consider those who gig bass, walleye, catfish, crappie etc. to be no different from the guys who drive the roads day or night and shoot deer just because they can.  They are poachers period.

[dtrs5kprs]

Al got there before I did with the duck and deer examples. In any type of hunting you should be 100% sure you are shooting the right animal, regardless of method. Gigging doesn't seem to have that kind of accuracy.

[Chief Grey Bear]

And neither is fishing. I wonder how many sub legal bass have been gut hooked by some kid dunking a worm? 

[Bill Kay]

Mr. Agnew is dead on regarding how fish experience and react to pain stimuli.  Here is a link to a thorough review of the literature on the subject.

The Neurobehavioral Nature of Fishes and the Question of Awareness and Pain

The study is somewhat long, but the gist is contained in the abstract that I have copied from below:

"The literature on the neural basis of consciousness and of pain is reviewed, showing that: (1) behavioral responses to noxious stimuli are separate from the psychological experience of pain, (2) awareness of pain in humans depends on functions of specific regions of cerebral cortex, and (3) fishes lack these essential brain regions or any functional equivalent, making it untenable that they can experience pain. Because the experience of fear, similar to pain, depends on cerebral cortical structures that are absent from fish brains, it is concluded that awareness of fear is impossible for fishes." 

As a matter of fact, many fish behave pretty much the same if you remove their cerebral cortex (the thinking part of the brain.)

[Deadstream]

So, in a nut shell, I can catch and release or catch and eat a fish without guilt?   ( I ate fish at church for fish fry tonight)

[mreed81]

11 hours ago, Bill Kay said:

Mr. Agnew is dead on regarding how fish experience and react to pain stimuli.  Here is a link to a thorough review of the literature on the subject.

The Neurobehavioral Nature of Fishes and the Question of Awareness and Pain

The study is somewhat long, but the gist is contained in the abstract that I have copied from below:

"The literature on the neural basis of consciousness and of pain is reviewed, showing that: (1) behavioral responses to noxious stimuli are separate from the psychological experience of pain, (2) awareness of pain in humans depends on functions of specific regions of cerebral cortex, and (3) fishes lack these essential brain regions or any functional equivalent, making it untenable that they can experience pain. Because the experience of fear, similar to pain, depends on cerebral cortical structures that are absent from fish brains, it is concluded that awareness of fear is impossible for fishes." 

As a matter of fact, many fish behave pretty much the same if you remove their cerebral cortex (the thinking part of the brain.)

Let's continue to scroll or find other research as well, and not go off of the first thing we find on the internet as being the truth, because there are other studies that show different evidence. Fish do feel pain. Just because they don't yelp like a dog doesn't mean a hook doesn't hurt them.

I have an actual first hand experience that fish do feel pain and I will share that with you. I had Piranhas in an aquarium when I was a kid. I couldn't afford the cost of gold fish every week so I began to breed Convict Cichlids which are basically the easiest fish to breed without tons of maintenance. Once the fry grew to 1/2" or more they would be placed with the Piranhas for food. Well, two of the convicts were able to stay away from the piranhas long enough in order to become mature and spawn. These two, roughly 2" fish guarded their nest with their lives and ripped half of the fins off of the Piranhas which were 8" or larger! The piranhas stopped eating and stayed hunched down in a corner of the 6' wide aquarium to the point that I had to remove the Convicts. Tell me how without fish being able to feel pain the Convicts were able to control an entire aquarium, and dominate two Piranhas that were multiple sizes larger and also had razor sharp teeth? If it didn't hurt then why would the Piranhas basically shut down and let two small fish make them not eat or swim?

And when it comes to fish not being able to experience or be aware of fear? How many fish have you ever scared away when walking on a stream or up to a pond? If they aren't afraid of being eaten or attacked then why do they swim away so fast? I am not saying that fish feel pain the same way that we do or experience emotions like us but lets not act like they are some retarded animal that can't physically feel anything or have a somewhat keen awareness to their surroundings.

[mjk86]

8 hours ago, Chief Grey Bear said:

And neither is fishing. I wonder how many sub legal bass have been gut hooked by some kid dunking a worm? 

Too many....When I was a little kid, I spent lots of time in terre du lac near bonne terre.  We fished on the big river over some shallow bluffs near the campground.  Wed get ourselves some bugs in the field across the road.Often times my friend and I would only have 2 hooks left. (And 1 fishing pole lol....our other one was a tried and true stick).  We weren't about to lose our only hook to a gut hooked fish.

[dtrs5kprs]

11 hours ago, Chief Grey Bear said:

And neither is fishing. I wonder how many sub legal bass have been gut hooked by some kid dunking a worm? 

There are ways to deal with a gut hooked fish that give it a chance. Hard to see that opportunity with a freaking spear.

Question I have is why not limit gigging to very specific bodies of water? 

[Bill Kay]

Fish DO feel pain. They have pain receptors and a central nervous system.  The point is that they do not conceptualize pain and develop an emotional response to it the way higher vertebrates like mammals do.  In my opinion your piranhas were simply responding to negative stimuli, and avoiding it.  They probably were not in fear to the same extent that your Convicts were not in love with each other--simply doing what biology told them to do for survival (I say probably because the widely held understanding of how the vertebrate brain works certainly could be wrong.)

I read about another study some time ago where the researchers scanned fish for brain activity, then inflicted a painful stimulus.  The  only place that showed any change in activity was the brain stem, indicating the only response was fight of flight.  They weren't tortured--at least not in a way that I would define torture.  I looked for information on this study, but came up empty.

So we stick a hook in a fishes mouth, remove it from the water, remove the hook and release it quickly.  It is stressed, and its mouth is probably sore, but it isn't afraid, and freaking out, and saying "Why me? What did I do to deserve this?"

I should also mention, however, that when the same scientific community that makes these claims about fish tells me that my little English Setter does not feel guilt and does not love me--I call BS.  I cannot watch her behavior and see anything but guilt when she does something wrong and love when she looks up at me when I scratch her ears.  So maybe I am entirely wrong.

 

[SpoonDog]

Anything with a nervous system is gonna feel pain, fellas.  Whether it's akin to what humans feel I don't know, but it wasn't that long ago folks thought dogs and cats and horses didn't feel pain like we did, either, and we've justified all sort of awful things through history by saying one group of folks doesn't have this or that capacity. 

Fish feel pain, and if you've ever walked by a hatchery raceway or watched fish chase each other in an aquarium you already know they can feel physiological stress.  Some build complex nests using only their jaws or their fins, some can sniff there way home from the oceans, some exhibit a level of parental care you won't see in many humans.  Regardless of whether they feel pain "like us" they're pretty neat critters and they deserve respect- that doesn't mean you should beat yourself up about fishing for them, though.

11 hours ago, dtrs5kprs said:

Al got there before I did with the duck and deer examples. In any type of hunting you should be 100% sure you are shooting the right animal, regardless of method. Gigging doesn't seem to have that kind of accuracy.

I've seen lots of folks kill lots of things they thought were ducks or doves or quail.  How many swans were offed this year because someone thought they were snow geese?  You set a trap without knowing for certain what animal it'll catch, and I promise a few cats and dogs go missing that time of year.  Gigging's no less accurate than any number of things we otherwise find perfectly acceptable.

MDC hasn't restricted gigging because they're not in the position of legislating vice.  It's easy to understand why dynamite or electricity aren't good for fisheries, and when they did the research to show noodling screwed catfish they banned it- despite the influence of state legislators.  And while you guys have been able to show some bass are gigged, you haven't shown (with verifiable numbers) it appreciably impacts the resource.  You're entitled to think gigging's a hick thing to do if that's your opinion, but realize the grownups aren't going to make decisions purely  because you think something's icky.  And for a group of folks who's constant refrain is MDC pays more attention to reservoir or trout or paddlefish or catfish anglers than smallmouth guys, the idea they should restrict another angling group to a certain set of waters is ludicrous.  Who ordained you?