Fishing in frigid weather, C/R & Frozen Gills

[bfishn]

I had lots of experience handling trout in frigid conditions when I was a trout farmer in the '90s. We shut down fishing activity in the winter, but maintained regular supply of our restaurant and fish market customers. Each customer had specific size requirements, so grading out the right fish for each batch required a fair amount of exposure to frigid air temps. I worried about frozen gills, but never experienced any mortality for that reason. I did however, have several fish that were exposed to sub-freezing air for 30 seconds or more then returned to the raceways that sustained eye damage. An opaque, white film was the telltale sign after a few days, and it was pretty obvious the affected fish were blind in one or both eyes.

[grizwilson]

9 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

True that!  Adrenaline kicks in and you won't even realize you are cold until you are safely back in the boat and quit panting. But after that it gets miserable fast and it hurts BAD. 

Frozen gills is sure possible but I'd think only with air temps in the teens or below, and nobody has any business fishing when it's that cold out.  It isn't fun....And fishing should be fun. 

I do know that fish can be shocked by putting them into warmer water, but they can't be shocked by putting them into colder water.  Rapidly cooling down a fish actually seems to help them, but rapidly warming one up will kill them deader than a hammer in no time.

A few years back I was fishing a heated dock in your neck of the woods and a couple of guys placed their frabil minnow bucket in the lake....it was very cold.... they fished with dead minnows the rest of the day.... I assumed due to the colder water but we all know what assume will do.....

[grizwilson]

9 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

True that!  Adrenaline kicks in and you won't even realize you are cold until you are safely back in the boat and quit panting. But after that it gets miserable fast and it hurts BAD. 

Frozen gills is sure possible but I'd think only with air temps in the teens or below, and nobody has any business fishing when it's that cold out.  It isn't fun....And fishing should be fun. 

I do know that fish can be shocked by putting them into warmer water, but they can't be shocked by putting them into colder water.  Rapidly cooling down a fish actually seems to help them, but rapidly warming one up will kill them deader than a hammer in no time.

Having been in the water a few times in cold weather, I have broke ice to get the boat near the bank to get back in, broke ice to get back to boat ramp.  If you can get out of the water quickly, which is a chore with lots of clothes, they will often freeze before your skin gets wet. On at least 3 occasions I have had to stand by a fire for several minutes to thaw enough to unbutton my shirt but was warm and dry underneath.. Not sure if I am older and wiser or just lazy anymore. 

[Chief Grey Bear]

7 minutes ago, grizwilson said:

Having been in the water a few times in cold weather, I have broke ice to get the boat near the bank to get back in, broke ice to get back to boat ramp.  If you can get out of the water quickly, which is a chore with lots of clothes, they will often freeze before your skin gets wet. On at least 3 occasions I have had to stand by a fire for several minutes to thaw enough to unbutton my shirt but was warm and dry underneath.. Not sure if I am older and wiser or just lazy anymore. 

I've always head from those that study this, humans seem to only be able to survive for just a few short moments in frigid waters. But what do they know. Just a bunch of do nothing money wasters. 

[fishinwrench]

11 minutes ago, grizwilson said:

A few years back I was fishing a heated dock in your neck of the woods and a couple of guys placed their frabil minnow bucket in the lake....it was very cold.... they fished with dead minnows the rest of the day.... I assumed due to the colder water but we all know what assume will do.....

The lake water was probably warmer than the water in the bucket.  

Any drastic and sudden temperature change is probably hard on fish, but they certainly can handle going from warm to cold way better than they can handle going from cool/cold to warm/hot.  

[fishinwrench]

38 minutes ago, Chief Grey Bear said:

I've always head from those that study this, humans seem to only be able to survive for just a few short moments in frigid waters. But what do they know. Just a bunch of do nothing money wasters. 

Pretty much.  ?

No I'd say that if you fell in, and stayed in for several minutes, then you'd likely loose your ability to climb out.  But I've been tossed out of a boat into extremely cold water 2 times, fell through the ice once, and another time I busted through sheet ice into chest deep water to save my dog because his collar got hung up on some jackasses limb line.   On all of those occasions it was like I had Super-human strength.....But I was only submerged for less than a minute.   

One of the times I had to swim about 25 yards. The water temp was below 40°/ air temp was about the same.  No problem at all getting back into the boat, I pretty much leaped up in there like an Asian carp, but the battery had gotten tossed around when the boat nearly flipped and it wouldn't start, and I couldn't find the kill switch lanyard. It took about 10 minutes to get the battery hooked back up and I only had a short drive back to the ramp (less than 5 miles) while holding in the kill switch button.  Luckily the truck was still warm, so as soon as the boat was loaded I got to get into a warm truck.  I didn't start to shiver uncontrollably until I was almost home.  I warmed back up in the shower and at the end of the day the only problem was that I lost my glasses.   The lesson I learned was that BATTERY STRAPS ARE IMPORTANT !    Inspect them occasionally and replace when they are rotten.  

The other lesson I learned was SLOW DOWN !!!

[Old plug]

I have operted over 500 mile north of the artic circle among the icebuergs back in yesteryear. We were up there allegedly TRAINING a S2F squadron. In the arts of tradking subs. Do not ask me why in 

[BilletHead]

10 minutes ago, Old plug said:

I have operted over 500 mile north of the artic circle among the icebuergs back in yesteryear. We were up there allegedly TRAINING a S2F squadron. In the arts of tradking subs. Do not ask me why in 

     Old Plug,

  OA's own 007  Shaken not stirred .

Thanks for your service,

BilletHead

[Mitch f]

I think it depends how good of shape you're in.

 

 

[Old plug]

I have operted over 500 mile north of the artic circle among the icebuergs back in yesteryear. We were up there allegedly eTRAINING a S2F squadron. In the arts of tradking submariiines. In a world suppsedly filled with peace.  Mr Kruchev and the russian Navy  felt we should have been using our own dam submarines for practce.  A year or so later he was banging his shoe on a table top at the UN threatening to turn us and all the ships then operating in the 6 th fleet into floatng coffins. He was sort of like the current crop of nuts leading a much more dangerous world

A  S2F is a twin engine prop driven aircraft.When it leaves the flightdeck of a carrier the prop wash will just about freeze you right then. It got so cold we would sometime find it a relief to stand as close to those exaust outlets as possble when you could whiIe they were waiting to launch.. we had two of them collide killing both crews. Took  tem about 1 hrs to retrive body parts and stuff that were frozen.