I won’t go as far as that fish feel no pain at all, just not on the same level.
what is pain?
like Drew said – fish respond to stimuli. Humans associate such reactions to stimuli by assigning categories: pain, fear, love, affection. Do fish have the capacity to assign the stimulus of being hooked to “pain”? Or does their microprocessor simply apply programing logic of “if ___ then ___”?
I don’t think there is anyone here asking to allow fish, or any other animal, to suffer. However, the very sport of fishing assumes that there will be some mortality involved. The question of “how to properly kill a fish” is extremely subjective. Everyone will have their reasons for doing it one way vs. another – just read those talking about bleeding their fish for an example.
I kill my fish by tossing them on the ice or in the snow (when ice fishing). When fishing in my boat I will simply drop them in the live well with a block of ice (no water). Occasionally I will “bonk” them on the head, or break their neck. But usually I just toss them somewhere cold and allow nature to do the rest. Poor fish. I’ll bet that makes them feel bad.
I like the sound of them flopping around in my cooler.
Maybe I’m nuts but when I get on a good spot and start catching fish I don’t want to waste time killing them or bleeding them. I prefer to throw them in the cooler or basket if I’m tube fishing and then get back to nailing fish[;)]
I’ve read most of the other posts, and thought I would chime in on a couple of things.
First, when we fish at Lake Powell and camp using a houseboat, we generally only keep panfish (crappie, bluegill) to eat. We keep them in live wells, and when we get back to the houseboat, filet the fish. We generally have enough that we transfer them to buckets and then filet. The short time in the buckets, out of water, causes them to be less active, but I’m sure they are still alive when we filet.
Secondly, when I ice fish, mostly for panfish, I put them on ice in a cooler when fishing and when I get home, I’ve noticed that many perch are pretty hardy and still flop around when getting filet.
I guess in both cases I am transporting live fish. At Powell I think it is ok because we aren’t leaving the water they were caught at. I also, figure the perch being alive when I’m driving home isn’t a problem, because they are not being “kept alive” on purpose.
Now, I’ve had an experience where I caught a smallmouth bass at Deer Creek, put him on ice in a cooler, fished some more, then drove to Park City. Must have been more than an hour out of the water. I took him out to filet and he was still flopping, so I filled the sink with water and he started swimming around! Honest.
Exactly what I do, throw them on ice and let nature take it’s course. I can see why bleeding would improve flavor on some fishier tasting fish like wipers and trout. I prefer not to though.
Anthropomorphism is attributing human qualities to non human beings. The thing is, humans are merely a highly evolved animal. We share many many similarities to other warm blooded animals and in many ways, we are not so different. We are just a bit more refined and sophisticated in intelligence level in terms of abstract thought and pragmatic thought and in other ways that make us so powerful. But nope, i have no desire to put my junk into a walleye’s mouth lol.