It simply comes down to respect for nature and another living thing. It doesn't remove 'taste' from the fish by giving it a quick whack on the head before filleting. I was always taught that growing up....even for mullet, garfish and whiting. It all depends on the person's morals. Life is survival of the fittest etc etc but one doesn't have to be cruel to survive.
R -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of DonO Sent: Friday, 10 February 2006 7:28 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [VFB] Live fish filleting (First of all, I'm going to assume the literal translation of "filet & release" as filleting a living fish and throwing the carcass back in while it is still alive. I've seen this done for 4 decades at least.) I grew up in the deep south, and fished for as far back as I can remember (my dad said I was 2 the first time I caught a 'brim' on a cane pole). I don't remember fresh-water fishing, but I remember fishing along the Lake Pontchartrain seawall quite a bit, catching croakers and 'sheep-head'. We kept fish on stringers, as we didn't have ice chests and stuff like that. When it came time to go, it was time to clean the fish. We didn't filet fish, as gutting and scaling was the way to do it- zero meat thrown back. Fish were baked whole or fried whole- head, eyes, fins- everything. "There's a lot of good meat around the head of that fish- can't throw that away", my granddad used to say. You see, for him, fish were survival food, especially during the Great Depression. He made a living throwing a cast net and hand-lining. Not much was thrown back. TO get to the point, since the fish were still alive on the stringer, and it was time to clean them- what to do. My grand-dad, and my dad, would take each fish and whap it on the head with a hatchet handle (which was always carried along as their 'catfish sleep-inducer'- to keep from getting finned). You see, even though they had never heard the word conservation, they accepted their unspoken stewardship over fellow creatures seriously. It was not 'humane' to gut or scale a living fish for consumption. Even though a common sight was a feeding frenzy, with sharks and jacks feeding on baitfish, tearing them to shreds and having dozens of them wounded, disemboweled, cut in half, etc. swimming around until something ate them, my 'teachers' still believed in humanely putting any animal down before proceeding to clean it. So until you witness a saltwater feeding frenzy, don't get too emotionally upset about someone 'live-filleting' a fish. I've seen that done, even with guides and mahi-mahi offshore. It's not right in my book, but if you throw that live fish back, there's a good chance that some predator will live-filet it for you anyway. Who has not fished the salt extensively and not had a predator strip, chop up, de-body, or mutilate a fish on the line? If you bottom-fish off-shore, you might as well take everything home, as nothing survives the swim back to the bottom. Heck, for the first few fish, sometimes, they don't even survive the reel-in to the surface. So maybe salt-water fishermen are a little 'crustier' than freshies. I've caught mackerel and proceeded to dispatch them by chopping them up into cut-bait, the first cut behind the head to dispatch them quickly. But what about live-bait fishing? One jams a hook through the eyes or back of the live fish and tosses it over. Inhumane? Why? In a few minutes, if it was still in its school, a bluefish would probably have chopped it up for you, or disemboweled it and left it to die if nothing else ate it. Whether you live-bait fish or not- this still goes on. I've seen saltwater fishermen gash a live bait to make it bleed to attract gamefish. This goes on and will go on. One does become calloused to any suffering the fish feels because of the environment that fish lives in anyway. I'm not in defense of live filleting, as it's easy to dispatch the fish first. But when one has fished for decades and has witnessed the callous natural slaughter of thousands of living things, it's actually not a big step to live-filleting. Whether one likes it or not, it will go on with some fishermen- especially with those who use live and cut bait in salt water. In freshwater fishing, one rarely witnesses a feeding frenzy. One rarely has a fish mutilated on the line. It's a world apart from saltwater fishing- especially off-shore fishing. So freshwater fishermen tend to be more sensitive than their counterparts of the deep salt. Freshwater fish generally swallow their prey whole and the prey succumbs to asphyxiation- a 'humane' demise. The most inhumane thing one encounters is poking that hook through a live bait. So what happens now? One catch-and-releaser catches a nice trout on a fly, kisses it, carefully cradles it until it is revived and swims away. An hour later that trout eats a worm or minnow with a hook in it. It is then unceremoniously jerked out of the water and tossed into a cooler to suffocate. Another bass is caught for the 5th time by a tournament fisherman, kept in the live well all day, held up by the jaw for photos that evening, then released. The next day he is grabbed by an osprey and killed by talons through his spine. Bears routinely strip live salmon of their skin and let the living fish slip back into the river to die. Are we bears? No. Does this happen naturally? Yes. What do these fish feel? No one knows. They'll soon spawn and die anyway, some say. Some people can't stand to put a hook through a worm. Some can put a hook through a worm, a fish, a live frog, a salamander, or even a live mouse. People draw the line for themselves without a problem. It's when they draw the line for others when the problems start. My feeling... People are smart. Animals aren't. Animals suffer at their own hands, and at our hands (catch & release included). We don't have to make them suffer any more than they already do- but we actually do in the name of sport. Some would rather have a fish suffer in the name of food- more noble?? We are stewards of the land and animals, not of each other. If we drive a car, we pollute. If we buy a license, we help restore fisheries. I know where the brain is in a fish. My filet knife is just the right tool for a humane dispatch if I'm going to gut & scale, be-head, or filet & eat that fish. "Life musta' have balance, Daniel-sonn" . Comments? DonO I was a little curious about what a filet and release is also. I thought it was just dumping the waste until I saw Paul Marriners post about filleting and releasing them live???? How's that possible? I'm not sure I really want to know but you know what they say about curious minds.. Regards, Deb
