Foul hooking fish for sport and food....

When the priority was getting something to eat what was wrong with catching a pheasant on a hook? Nothing. People did many a thing to get a bite.

Fair enough, I can see this chat aint going to go much further, fun while it lasted tho, thanks
However, the method above is illegal for a variety of reasons, not to mention being ethically wrong in my opinion

And I would agree with you about fish farming, Marine harvest is a pet hate of mine, they are trying to set up an operation in west Cork and I am strongly opposed to that... I meant wild salmon in season... (I'm thinking a lot in terms of organic pig and lamb lately ) on a very rare occasion... I had mentioned earlier that I was keen to start salmon fishing but your description has honestly put me off a bit, not being used to fresh water scene I'll look into it a bit more...

(although I was wrong and foul hooking is illegal so I would report them now)

Im glad you now agree that this wrong!!!!
As for your stance on C&R v C&K i will NEVER agree with you!!
Personally i`ve never heard such nonsense,but thank you for taking the time to add your thoughts to this thread

Purposely foulhooking fish is just plain wrong and I'd rate all these activities the same as I'd rate poaching. It is illegal and therefore any cases witnessed should be reported, preferably accompanied or followed up with photographic evidence etc. so the perpetrators can be prosecuted and held responsible under the existing laws. Simple as that. Zero tolerance is the only way to stop this. No excuses.

Consider a sports angler catching 17 Bass in one session.
If I go for Bass I'll take the first 2 legal fish I find and go home. The other 15 may swim completly undisturbed by humans in their natural environment...
Couple that to a lure angler who catches all 17fish, dragging them kicking and screaming from their natural environment and keeping the 2 biggest and releasing the others. Now they may very claim the high ground for practicing c+r and criticise me for killing the first 2 I saw but I think in my senario I actually made the smallest impact on the fish.
Even if all 17 go back there is still some affect on the species and the habitat... thats all I was saying... C+R anglers should be aware of this and not take the high ground is all...


...

Hi Donnyboy,,,,,,,,,,,what do you do with the fish you catch that you dont eat . Surely you dont catch 2 edible fish straight away . If you dont get edible fish do you keep killing the undersize ones until you do


ps,i've never been lucky enough to catch 17 bass in one session

I used to hear of this going on alot when I was young, lads with big trible hooks down trying to foul hook Salmon, Sea trout & Mullet why they do it is behond me luckly it seem to have died away over the years, I always was brought up to respect the sea & all that swim in it. Iv'e been fishing along time but only caught my first Mullet last year & have to say there a top class fighting fish & cant wait to catch a few more, Iv'e nothing against someone taking a few fish for a feed as I do myself manly Pollock & Mackerel & the odd sea trout but the bulk of fish I catch are relesed to fight another day & I have to say its a great sight to see a fish swim off. I do alot of Wrasse fishing & have caught the same fish a couple of times even had a big one break my line & caught it again a few minutes later with the first hook still in its mouth but over the years Iv'e seen marks wiped out by people taking every wrasse they catch

"The Paper on the situation in Germany was actually brand new to me and makes facinating reading... where C+R is a crime in certain senarios' there is obviously a lot more there than I ever considered..."

Hello again Donny,

do you recall the details of such a situation, the scenarios where the Germans have made catch and release in angling into a crime?

The only scenario I have ever heard of before in Ireland or Britain where returning fish wasnt permitted (not in a legal sense) is in the case of 'put and take' rainbow trout fisheries where the returning of fish might affect the profitability of the business as fishermen might choose not to revisit the fishery (and pay the fees to fish there for the day) if they struggle to catch wary 'spooky' rainbow trout which have been caught before.

I'd be very interested to know the circumstances where the Germans have made releasing fish alive into a crimnal offence?

Thanks,

Cathal.

ps, yeah a worthwhile discussion in ways, not intending to drag it out further, just interested in the above thing re the Germans.

have been following this thread with interest and frankly I've been shocked with some comments on here, in reference to the first, Davy i totally agree with you on this. to me any one that foul hooks a fish purposely (snatches) is not a sports man of any kind and is illegal i have seen this done on many a river, usually it is the salmon that is targeted and from what i have seen they were not taken for food, but for money.
ie; two of us fished the Esky river from 5am to 8.45pm with only one fish been got, just as we were packing up the gear three local lads landed down, they had small boat rods loaded up with heavy line, and what looked like a perk on the end with a whole tear of trebles hooks attached to it. in 20 minutes they had dragged 7 salmon from the pool, they laughed and said to us...........thats our carry out for tonight. they were selling them to buy their drink.

PURPOSELY FOULHOOKING IS SNATCH'ING = ILLEGAL

davy i am like you i enjoy my mullet fishing from the river dodder in dublin and do it for sport and the trill of the battle but i dont mind anyone who fishes for them with hook and line or even a fly that keeps one for the pot but once they have being taken on 1 of the above methots but i have also being told about f/n useing 6 treb hooks at a time and pulling them out 1 or 2 at a time this i dont agree with there is no sport in it and is making a big hole in the amount of mullet in the river this year from what i can see and there last week a bloke parked up at a well knowen pool at the back of the avia staduim and trew out a cast net and pulled in about 15 put them stright into is booth a away he went and i was just woundering does the laws of the river come into play if it is tidle waters you are fishing methot/no dead bait etc.. because i know you cant use net in the river

Hi tightlines, river or sea, I really dont think there is any unlicenced net fishing allowed for any species. Legal netsmen all have to buy a licence to put a net in the water, as far as I am aware.

There is recreational pot fishing for lobster and crab(in the north), as a very small venture(5 creels max, 1 legal size lobster allowed to be landed per day and up to 5 legal brown crabs) but if theres recreational netting Ive never heard of it?

sin é, good post

Well I'm with you there, but if someone is out to get one for the pot, I can't see a prob.

I have a couple of questions for Donny if he wouldn't mind answering them. They are purely things i have wondered while reading this thread, and i dont want to start an argument as it has been very civilised so far! I'm very impressed with the people of SAI.

1. Do you enjoy fishing? I thought it may have been a stupid question at first but you always seem to refer to fishing as something you do purely for food and not for enjoyment.

2. Lets say you decided you wanted mullet for dinner. You went to a spot where you knew they would be and sure enough there is a large shoal present. However, they aren't feeding and you can't catch one. Would you then foul hook one or two fish and go home happy? If not, why not? By you own views it amounts to the same thing.

Thats it, i look forward to reading the answer

As for the situation in question, anyone who knows my posts on the site can guess how i view people foul hooking mullet. I don't need to spell it out.

Thanks

Alex

I love the process of sourcing good quality local food, fish is a large part of that and yes I love fishing... if i did not enjoy it I believe I would almost certainly use local commercial fisherman and see if I couldn't source my fish supply directly from them.
But I do enjoy it so most of my fish is caught by myself, not all 100% from the shore with a rod, but a little but. But I 100% do not do it for fun... I do not like the idea of injuring fish or any animals unnecessarily... 100% C+R is not my bag for that reason, but if it floats other peoples baot then so be it... it is legal, and every now and then I may take a moral or ethical standpoint but so be it, C+R is not illegal and it certainly leaves more fish in the water...

However I would have a lot more respect for C+R anglers that did not buy fish unless they know 100% how that fish was caught... that goes for things like prawns or bait... Not pointing fingers but plenty of anglers here talk about a good days fishing with 100% C+R and then report in the post that they stopped off for fish and chips on the way home... I struggle to understand people like that!!

Well... if I went to a spot and with a particular technique (rod angling for mullet) to catch fish in mind and I failed I would go home empty handed... or find food elsewhere, maybe forage some crabs or shellfish....
I can safely say I would not adopt an illegal technique or one that I feel could leave an injured fish in the water.

I'm very sorry if I gave the view that I support foul hooking, as I've already said I was not aware of the practice before reading this thread and when I was commenting on different techniques for fishing being fair I had assumed the technique was legal.

Actually thinking about it fishinmidget, I much rather seeing fish in their natural environment than fishing... but when I fish its mostly during dark winter or out on my boat... in the summer I am mostly freediving and spearing. Rod angling plays a small part of how I source fish, but I feel any time spent by the ocean is well spent... I have in the past gone fishing caught my preset target for fish and gone for a walk or swim, or forage if during winter.

Not sure I've answered coherently, but I tried

I'm going to be blunt, i am struggling to understand how you enjoy fishing. You do seem to enjoy catching, and theres nothing wrong with that but i argue it is different to fishing. I could go fishing for, say, a 4lb flatfish. If by some miracle i catch one first cast, i would have achieved my goal but i'm not going to pack up and go home right there because i enjoy the act of fishing. Catching is secondary. I have had some fantastic days fishing where i havent caught a thing.

I don't believe foul hooking in saltwater is illegal. I have looked at all the links and information on this thread and while it most certainly is illegal in freshwater, i haven't seen anything that tells me its illegal in the sea. You say you wouldn't do it because it could leave an injured fish in the water, and while i agree with you surely the same can be said for all types of fishing, spear and net fishing included?

You also seem to disagree with hurting fish for sport, which i can sort of understand. What i don't understand is right up until you kill the fish you are doing everything identical to the way a catch and release angler does things. The difference is when you kill the fish, the catch and release angler lets it go. Surely if the fish has the capacity to feel acute pain in the way that we do, the fish would be more grateful to the angler who lets it live than the one that kills it? I think that fish aren't physically advanced enough to feel pain, and i have yet to see any findings that would persuade me to change this view so while this is irrelevant for me, it does make your view just as hypocritical as you think C&R anglers are.

If you really didn't agree with causing fish 'pain' you wouldn't fish for them at all. Humans don't NEED fish to live, you can get your protein and oils elsewhere. If your argument against this is that you enjoy eating fish, well i enjoy fishing. It amounts to the same thing.

I am honestly not having a go at you, and i hope you believe me when i say that as i know this post isn't really going to come across well.

Alex.

P.S. Oh dear, i seem to have got myself involved in this er....debate. oh well

Edit, Edit: Cathal, if you admit that fish have higher cognitive abilities such as learning then you also admit that they are sentient and so deserve so protection. If that is the case C+R for personal human pleasure, in your eyes, must be wrong as the fish is an intelligent animal? Also if they are capable of cognitive abilities such as learning then they most likely are capable of other primitive cognitive tasks such as emotion i.e. fear and interpretation of pain.

Just re reading the thread and i noticed this.

You were joking right? You were seriously suggesting that the gap between learning to react to a stimulus and emotion is so small a flounder can do it?

I mean....... Seriously?

i dont think its thst hard to understand how i like fishing... been doing it since i was a kid, only my attitudes have changed somewhat.... look when i go on holiday i love the flying part... the take of and landing still give me a buzzz... but if there was no hokiday then i doubt i would book a few flights just to enjoy flying as a passenger... in this case the end justifies the means in terms of enjoyment.

regarding hurting fish for sport... no, i think it comes down to intention.... if i intend to kill and eat a fish, then whatever pain is incurred by the catching is inconsequential... again in a way they end justifies the means.... some techniques suit certain fish , the only time i use nets is for prawns also u can watch shoals of fish until u have a certain shot with a spear. if u get the shot perfect the fish dies immediately, if not u grab it and kill it as quickly as possible... u cant get any bycatch with spearing, in a way the spearing is secondary to the freediving....

re emotion, cognition and learning are some of my main research interests professionally, i have refernced certain papers that show links.
research into animal cognition, emotion and learning as benn welll researched since the 50's with leading reserch from pavlov and skinner in the area of behaviourism... its 100% true for most species... there is learing and this is displayed by behavior change... these higher cognitive abilitiesshow that these creatures are capable of emotion....to what degree is another matter...for even a flounderthere should be some...

if ucatch a first cast flounder, i would say try to do it again;) if u are lucky enough to repeat well u got one for freezer

ps.. fantastic post eyesreilly, succinct and well thought out... a great use of brain matter, finger dexterity, computing and broadband resources.....

I've heard of a few anglers doing this with a large treble hook or a spoon '' its the only way to catch them' was there mentality,i totally disagree with it . if your after a fish for the pot then mackerel is the obvious choice , feathers are cheap or can be made for that matter , macs are in fast growing species where as mullet take years to mature and even longer to reach specimen size. it you can't catch a fish the proper way then you don't deserve to catch the fish at all.why does the specimen committee state

“Fair Angling” means any legitimate method of angling with rod and reel which is recognised as a fair and sporting method. A fish must be hooked in or in the immediate vicinity of the mouth when it has taken the bait or lure; fish which have been foul-hooked, even accidentally, are not eligible.

'' snatchers'' are scum

It takes 7 years for a mackeral to reach maturity

Taken from the inland fisheries board web site Foul Hooking
This bye-law prohibits the killing and possession of foul hooked fish (i.e fish not hooked in the mouth) in any fishery district in any year and a fine is of 150 euro is applied see here for regulations http://www.fishinginireland.info/regulations.htm this is the legal position and if you want to do something about it happening contact your local fisheries officer and let him deal with it

i used to watch the lads in cork do it years ago under the bridge by the bus station for the salmon they used to call it stroke hauling and to be honest i enjoyed watching them and always wanted to give it a go. they had abig treble on a bit of line and would sit there motionless until a fish was spotted and then flick the treble they didnt get a fish every flick but they did get the odd fish and it looked to me like there was a lot of skill involved it. the guards used to chase them and take the fish off them but within an hour they would be back flicking imo they had virtualy no impact on fish stocks so i have no probs with people fishing this method