Wild Fishing with Henry

Was watching this program a few weeks back and seen a repeat the other day where Henry and his mate were fishing rock marks of the Coast of Clare, they were spinning for pollock when suddenly a shoal of mackeral came through and obviously the mackeral took the lads spinners-Then they handled the mackeral and through them back!! As we no the mackeral will die within a few days of this but should a so called expert be doing this on telly??? or does he not no that the fish will die when handled?? it was mostly his mate that did it but should this little clip have been shown on telly? surely this is amo for animal rights people an so on!! mayabe its just me but i thought it was stupid

I saw the program and thought nothing of it, is it just makeral that die when u through em back, thought if you wet your hands it doesnt do the fish any harm after you put em back!!

There is a whole host of info going back some time on this one James.... If you do a search, you will find some really interesting info.

Kev

No even with wet hands i think human skin burns the mackerals membrane skin and they die within 48 hours of being handled-i did this to loads of mackeral a year or two ago when i didnt no imagine how many just get let go every year an die.

i suppose the strugglers that were handled, would be picked off by higher predators - at least id like to think that - and still contribute to the food chain in the area

better than leaving them to rot on the shore

but obviously spreading the message of not handling is the important thing here

Hey there am not sure where you are getting your information from but mackerel are relatively unaffected by handling. i worked for a few years in the aquarium in galway. we caught loads of mackerel (using various handling techniques) which are all still happily swimming around the tanks with no extra treatment. In fact most fish are fine even after long distance transportation. Some have even been deep hooked with the hook left in them with no ill effects. From my experience the fish that are really susceptible to handling are pouting and poor cod.

Here is the original thread

http://www.sea-angling-ireland.org/bull ... php?t=3234

So whos achually right??? im reading article after article telling people not to handle mackeral

Well I reckon I'll stick to shaking them off the hooks either way... :wink:

And in no way to detract from Rampent Wreckfishs opinion I would be inclined to go with 'one of the UK's top fishery scientists at CEFAS' opinion from Leon Roskillys post

i reckon the guy that works in the aquirium is right he would have first HAND knowledge on the matter. id say the only way they could be harmed is if they were out of the water to long and if a lot of their scales were removed due to the fish being stressed out an infection could set in quit quickly, but just to make sure i dont kill any i will also try and unhook them with out touching them.