|
Successful Catch & Release - by Rob Brewer |
|
| Most, if not all of us practice catch and release. We catch a bass, put him in the livewell or we release him right away when not fishing a tournament. We all do this because we hope to catch the same fish again later on. Our “not so secret” agenda is that he will be a little bigger next time around. Research, acceptance and the practice of catch and release has increased by leaps and bounds over the last twenty years. Most tournament circuits require it and some have conducted extensive research on the effects it has on bass. I remember when everyone owned a stringer and success was measured by the number of fish hanging on that stringer. Fortunately, times have changed. Today’s angler is better equipped, educated and relentless in the pursuit of their quarry. I have just finished reading Dr Keith A. Jones’ (Ph.D.) book, Knowing Bass (Lyons Press, 2002). This article is in no way, shape or form an advertisement for this book. But I do want to give credit where it is due and I did learn a lot about bass from the research compiled to write this book. I want to share some of that knowledge with you. Dr. Jones is a fisheries biologist who has spent the last sixteen years conducting various experiments and research on bass (and other gamefish) at Berkley’s multimillion dollar research lab in Spirit Lake, Iowa. The book reads very scientific and might not prove interesting reading to a neophyte angler, but all you “bass junkies” out there would probably like it. I think you will find this book to be the most comprehensive available today with regards to what research has discovered about the senses and preferences of finned friend Mr. Bass. Anyway, back to the point of this article. I want to share what I’ve learned from this book regarding the stress angling and captivity (livewells) place on bass and how to counter those effects so that we may achieve minimal mortality amongst our released bass. After all, why release them if they’re going to die? Wouldn’t it be better to just take them home and eat them? Just for a moment, imagine you are a bass in one of the area lakes. You’re hiding amongst the many branches of a “blowdown” awaiting an unsuspecting morsel of prey to wander by. Along comes this fat, juicy plastic worm. As it falls down in front of you, you flare your gills and vacuum up the morsel. Suddenly you find yourself pulled from your hiding spot by some invisible force. You have no idea what is the matter, but instinct takes over and you fight for your life. You jump from the water, you sound to the security of the depths, but nothing is working. Eventually you are exhausted and must relent to this force. As you are pulled alongside this large rectangular floating “log”, a hand reaches down and “lips” you, removing you from your liquid environment. While you are suffocating in this semi-foreign environment, an angler is fumbling for his pliers or camera. After what seemed an eternity, you are placed into a dark, humming container, but at least you can breathe again. Little do you know, Now is when you will really begin the fight for your life. When a bass is hooked, it’s survival instinct takes over. It experiences a hormonal change just as you or I would during an adrenaline rush. What happens is the bass’ own adrenaline glands (yes, they have them too) kick in to high gear. This hormonal activity affects the entire physiology of the fish. It shuts down other biological systems like the immune system and feeding urge is suppressed as well. The adrenaline release has caused an increase in the flow of blood to the muscles and stores of sugar are released into the blood to provide extra energy. The side effect of this is a build up of lactic acid in the blood. This is caused by unusual increase in metabolism. The increase of lactic acid lowers the bass’ blood acidity, which reduces the blood’s ability to absorb oxygen from the water. Obviously, this makes it harder for the bass to breathe. Remember earlier, when I said the bass is only beginning the fight for his life? Well now it’s time to settle all those metabolic “debts”. First the suppressed immune system must kick back into gear. There are several infectious bacterias always present in the water and bass’ blood. Without the immune system, the bass is a goner. The bass must now exchange through the water all the metabolic deficiencies it has incurred along with ridding the body of wastes and byproducts the body has generated during the fight. Let’s take a moment and study the bass’s gills. We’ve all seen these bright red “strainers” on healthy fish. The reason they are so red is because you are basically looking directly at the blood in them. The membrane covering these things is only 1/10th the thickness of a human hair! Needless to say these are very, very delicate and must be treated accordingly. The membrane is so thin to allow gases like oxygen and CO² to pass freely to and from the blood. These membranes are so thin that water actually enters the bloodstream as well. The bass’ kidneys filter out this water in the form of urine. A bass urinates more than 20% of its body weight each day. Included in this urine are wastes such as urea and ammonia. Now here’s how livewells (sort of an oxymoron huh?) stress bass more than the fight of angling does. This is assuming you use a closed loop system of course. A closed loop system is one that constantly recirculates the same water over and over. While the bass is recovering from metabolic shock (in the livewell), it is excreting and leeching wastes into the water, while at the same time extracting all the needed electrolytes and oxygen from the water. Eventually the water in your livewell (though aerated) is becoming a hostile environment to the bass. As the bass consumes the needed nutrients from the water and secretes its wastes in to the water, it is essentially transforming it into an aerated waste tank. By now, you may be wondering what can be done to improve the water quality in your livewell and ensure the successful release of your limit. The minimum you can do is exchange the water in your livewell every three hours or so. Still there’s more you can do. Some use livewell conditioners (such as Please Release Me). This is where the closed loop system shines. It allows you to control water quality as opposed to pumping it over the side. Now here lies a case for argument. You could say that open loop livewells constantly exchange water and bring in fresh nutrients while removing wastes. And you’d be right. BUT you cannot control the water quality that comes in and it is futile to attempt to do so since its constantly discharged overboard. Here’s how you can control closed loop water quality without purchasing livewell conditioners and still make the water quality better than that of the lakes. Fill an old nylon stocking with 8 ounces (per 10 gal) of rock salt (not table salt) and hang it with a ziptie on the spraybar of your aerator. This will replenish the electrolytes in the water and the bass will absorb them through the gills. The nylon holds the salt crystals and keeps them out of your livewell pump. You can sedate bass using oil of cloves (3-5 drops per 10 gal) and the effects wear off almost immediately once returned to clean water. This is the same oil of cloves we used for toothaches as kids. Lastly, you can cool the livewell water by freezing some water in a few two-liter pop bottles. Put these in your cooler with your drinks. They’ll act as ice in the mean time. Once you have a fish or two, put one in your livewell and it will cool the water gradually without putting the fish in shock. Following these three simple steps will dramatically increase your bass’ chance of survival. We have one more step to cover though, weigh-in. We certainly don’t want all this effort to be for naught do we? Did you know that 10lb of bass in a weigh bag (with 2-gal water @ 86ºF) can reduce the oxygen level to less than 3ppm in only two minutes? Reach 1ppm (part per million) and the fish is dead. If you can, wait until the very last possible minute to bag your fish. If you have a huge limit, use multiple bags or weigh your fish straight from the live well. Try to keep handling to a minimum whenever possible. As ethical sportsmen, we owe this to the fish and to the image of our sport, especially with all the fire fishing is receiving from the misinformed animal rights organizations lately. If we’re gonna do it, lets do it right. Fishing is life. Rob Brewer |
