02-11-2013, 01:44 AM
I will fizz perch that are too small to fillet and I do agree with TD that the survival is fairly good if the water depth is reasonable. I was fishing in 28-30 ft of water last week and catching a large number of very small, unfilletable perch. I would fizz them if needed and could watch them swim back down on my finder quite rapidly. I am confident that most did fine. As has been stated, if a few were lost, from a fishery perspective, it is not a problem.
There is one more consideration if you are yanking perch or other similar fish up from about 50-55+ feet. Besides the airbladder problem, if you look closely, you will often see what appears to be what we call in mammals/humans "petechiation". This is small streaking of blood in the skin, mouth and eyes. This is from tissue trauma from the rapid decompression of being brought up quickly and is unrelated to the airbladder. Fizzing does not help this problem and my opinion is that these fish do have a high mortality whether they are fizzed or not. You have to really look for this, but if you see it, they may not survive. I see this in perch I catch that are pulled up at 50+ feet. I have not seen this on deep caught trout.
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There is one more consideration if you are yanking perch or other similar fish up from about 50-55+ feet. Besides the airbladder problem, if you look closely, you will often see what appears to be what we call in mammals/humans "petechiation". This is small streaking of blood in the skin, mouth and eyes. This is from tissue trauma from the rapid decompression of being brought up quickly and is unrelated to the airbladder. Fizzing does not help this problem and my opinion is that these fish do have a high mortality whether they are fizzed or not. You have to really look for this, but if you see it, they may not survive. I see this in perch I catch that are pulled up at 50+ feet. I have not seen this on deep caught trout.
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