Swim Bladders

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Dealing with Gassed Up Fish

Sep 19,2006 SACN

From time to time SACN gets requests from anglers asking about the possibility of returning fish bought up from depth where the swim bladder appears to be 'blown'.

Usually such fish cannot get back below the surface and are taken by gulls.

Sometimes the stomach is protruding from the mouth, often mistaken for the swim-bladder, but if the stomach is pierced, the fish will die.

If a fish needs to be vented, this article shows how it should be done:

See http://isurus.mote.org/research/cfe/fis ... a-fish.htm

Andy Elliott

Really good article with handy to know information.....alot of skippers seem to use this as an excuse for filling fish box's :evil: :cry:

No excuse now ... carry a hypo in your tackle box. A lot of anglers carry them anyway for injecting bait additives etc
Might be better giving the needle a wipe with an anticseptic swab first... not hard to get in any chemist and cheap as chips too

Andy

No excuse now ... carry a hypo in your tackle box. A lot of anglers carry them anyway for injecting bait additives etc
Might be better giving the needle a wipe with an anticseptic swab first... not hard to get in any chemist and cheap as chips too

Andy

i'll keep me eyes open for one....cheers

There is an excellent video on that site showing exactly how to do the procedure. Should be good for cod, ling, coaley, pollock etc.

just wondering,, how well do fish cope with a punchered swim bladder :?: , how do they keep there balance?
do fish get the "bends" when there brought up from deep water :?:
what do the get when they dive back down the "strights" :)

It seems that they have answered just these questions on cod in the UK and apparently the swim bladder can heal in times ranging from hours to days.

They pioneered this technique when tagging cod taken from depths up to 90m. Recaptured fish, some time later, were said to be in excellent condition, so I guess it works.

Seems it takes the cod up to 2-3 days to get it's balance back, but that doesn't appear to bother them overly.

on our first trip to norway the guide told us how to avoid blown swim bladders ,basically you stop reeling in the fish about 10/15 feet beneath the surface and wait for it to vent excess gas ,basically the fish farts for its life , it works a treat out of the hundreds of fish caught in the week only a few dozen had to be kept .
Sometimes the bubbles come out for up to 30 seconds but as soon as they stop ,bring the fish aboard unhook and put back in .not sure about ling though ,their bladders seem to go alot sooner .
You could always try not reeleng fish in quickly ,though presents other problems in that the fish is exhausted after a prolonged fight .