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I was fishing Clayton/Taylor on weekend and a guy came up and asked if we were using swim baits. I said yes. He said well stop, the fish are biting off the tails filling up their stomach's so they can't feed and are dying. He claimed he's opened the stomach on a number of Pike especially to find them filled up with plastic. What are your thoughts on this? I like using swim baits for fishing Largies weedless, but if this is truly an issue I don't want to be killing fish! Sure enough between my buddy and I we lost about 10 tails that day...

Strange how concerned they are about YOU possibly killing fish while they take their catch in and lop the heads off. You might ask him how the pike with the open stomachs made out.

I am concerned about plastics in the water, and have discontinued throwing discarded baits overboard (actually a long time ago) but the hypocrisy of some of these people drives me nuts.

That's just my opinion.

Ed

toobinator wrote: Strange how concerned they are about YOU possibly killing fish while they take their catch in and lop the heads off. You might ask him how the pike with the open stomachs made out.

I

That's pretty harsh Ed. Stanger brings up a valid point about plastics. Numerous studies show massive amounts of plastics in waterways the kill a lot of fish, whatever the species.
This one from our local university. http://www.fecpl.ca/wp-content/uploads/ ... S-Poll.pdf
There is nothing wrong at all with keeping Pike for consumption. It's far better to have the fish eaten rather than have them die and go to total waste because their system is all bunged up, so I don't know how you can criticize someone for keeping fish, specially when he was bringing up an issue that affect fish populations. Unless, as a bass angler you somehow feel threatened by his comments. For all you know the same guy releases all the bass he catches.

Cheers

Yes, you are right there. He may have kept just the one, and no, I don't disagree with keeping fish for consumption. I choose not to, or at least rarely, not because I am against it, rather for the reason that I hate cleaning them. I guess my opinion stems from numerous similar conversations at the store with people that bring everything home, regardless of the limit, and complain about the plastics in their system when they clean them.

Yes, I agree 100% that disgarded plastics in the water system is a serious problem. I think however, and again it's only my opinion that much of it is caused by throwing used plastics overboard rather than disposing of them at home. I know that I was guilty of just that until a few years ago when I saw what damage it could do.

Back to my original post. The angler in question may have kept this pike because it looked like it may die anyway, but I think a sickly looking fish would have gone back into the water and a healthier fish would be kept. Since he seems to know about stomach contents, he's opened up a few. Yes, that's his right, and I wouldn't say anything to stop those rights as long as he stays within his legal limit. I'm just saying that it's my right to use plastic baits, as long as I use common sense.

Not wanting to stir up a hornets nest, just expressing my opinion. (albeit somewhat harshly at times. lol)

I might also add that my opinion of the original conversation was based purely on speculation too.

Ed

There are swim-baits and there are swim-baits...

I pretty much never use the cheap "last forever" plastic baits and I believe that those are the ones most commonly associated with slowly killing fish.

At this point, I use almost exclusively the Berkley Gulp stuff (if I am fishing soft baits) as they do break-down. In fact, if you have ever accidentally left on on a hook you will see that they are mostly water as they dry right out to about 1/10th of their original size. Try that with a regular plastic bait and you will find that a year later it looks the same as it did when you started

I am sure that many other soft-baits which are packaged in those zip-locks are also bio-degrading in the fish, but I haven't really checked out the packages or research on them.

All I have to say on this is most fish will pass it as we are catching Rock Bass right now with large whole craw fish in them and I am sure their eye's water when they pass them shells and claws. It would take a pile of people loosing rubber in a given area to really effect fishing. You go south and look at the number of boats on the water any given day fishing for Bass 365 days a yr and their numbers are growing. Some of these claims on researches are due to having to come up with something so as to get more funding for further research. JMO

CBB wrote:All I have to say on this is most fish will pass it as we are catching Rock Bass right now with large whole craw fish in them and I am sure their eye's water when they pass them shells and claws. It would take a pile of people loosing rubber in a given area to really effect fishing. You go south and look at the number of boats on the water any given day fishing for Bass 365 days a yr and their numbers are growing. Some of these claims on researches are due to having to come up with something so as to get more funding for further research. JMO

My dog once ate one of my Birkinstock sandals. You know the really big clunky ones with the cork soles, leather straps, and metal buckles? Well, I didn't realize he had eaten it until a couple days later he was straining out in the yard and that sandal must have flown a good 4 feet from his butt... still in one piece! I don't think he even chewed it.

No... I didn't just rinse it off and put it back on (but I could have).

Amazing what the body can pass if it has to

Lake Trout and Speckled Trout are particularly vulnerable. Their anatomy is such that the start of their intestine is 180deg turn-around at the end of their stomach. Mostly only liquid goop passes this point, with solids accumulating in the stomach. Lakers are slurping up the plastic mostly during winter when they come up into the shallows

I have seen lakers and smallmouth and most other fish regurgitate an awful lot of things, so I don't know how they can't regurgitate some plastic bits. The only way to know if it is affecting fish would be to wait for them to die, somehow finding them and checking their stomachs. Killing a healthy feeding pike and finding some plastic bits in it's stomach is not proof that there is any ill effect to the fish.
I agree with not leaving discarded plastics in the water, same as please don't put cigarette butts in there. And I wouldn't continue to use swimbaits whose tails get constantly bitten off...firstly because I am cheap and like a lure that lasts, and secondly it "might" hurt a fish that I was not intending to eat for supper.

How some folks always seem to make it about “The Evil Bass Anglers” is beyond me!

I like to think anglers are aware and understand the negative effects of discarding plastics overboard, just as many are mindful of the potential issues of using lead in regards to loons. National parks, in both the US and Canada, has banned lead sinkers, I think it’s a step in the right direction.

Fish die for many reasons, plastic ingestion is most likely one of many, but there’s also old age, starvation, body injury, predation, stress, suffocation, water pollution, diseases, parasites, toxic algae, turnover…..oxygen depletion.

As far as your swimbaits, not sure what brand you’re using, but they seem to be ripping pretty easily, maybe try another brand.
If a concern, there’s lots of Bio baits available.

Also, it’s been mentioned before, but it never seems to be of interest to anyone, maybe tournaments and or city officials should look into ReBaits.

TheMaverick wrote: As far as your swimbaits, not sure what brand you’re using, but they seem to be ripping pretty easily, maybe try another brand.
If a concern, there’s lots of Bio baits available..

Zman makes that stretchy plastic to.

Ed, definitely a good point about discarding used plastics. I was also in the mindset of "well I'm casting them out and losing them occasionally, what's the big deal if I throw the used one's in?" I've started throwing out my plastics when I'm done with them too. It's probably the easiest and most effective thing you can do if you're worried about plastics harming fish, IMO.

Not tossing anything overboard is common sense. This guy was claiming it was just pieces of baits fish had bitten off was killing them. The particular bait I'm using has consistently performed much better than other manufacturer's who make the same bait, so I'm going to need more convincing before I change what I'm doing.

Stanger wrote: I'm going to need more convincing before I change what I'm doing.

Well Stanger, if you do the research, the evidence is surely there and documented, so I'm not sure how much more convincing you need.

Stanger wrote:I like using swim baits for fishing Largies weedless, but if this is truly an issue I don't want to be killing fish! Sure enough between my buddy and I we lost about 10 tails that day...

So in one day you lost 10 tails, that makes ten fish likely with plastic in their belly or at minimum pieces of plastic on the bottom waiting to be slurped up by other fish. Same result.

Obviously it's entirely your decision. I guess it depends on where your priorities actually lie. If, as you say you don't want to be killing fish, then your best bet is to switch baits and try one of the other ones mentioned, or find one that doesn't rip so easily, and maybe put some little cuts in it to give more action. However, seeing as you say you need more convincing, it seems like your priority leans more towards catching. Up to you man.

Cheers