Anyone who has visited the underwater observation room at the state park at Homosassa Springs has seen the big crevalle jacks swimming around in the spring boil. Some of them have huge, ugly, open sores on their heads. Other than that they look, and behave, just like the healthy jacks. Large, ugly, open sore on my head? No problem!
Way back in elementary school one of my schoolmates was Nick Georgopoulis. Nick and his dad liked to fish in the Breakhart Reservation. Most folks back then didn't have boats, and the Georgopoulises were not an exception. Like my dad and I, they fished from the bank.
Nick's dad liked to bring me with them when they went fishing. I think this had less to do with my behavior than the fact that I had a minnow trap. Nick's dad caught bigger fish when I was there, because then he used minnows for bait instead of earthworms.
One day I was at Breakhart fishing with the Georgopoulises. Being a kid, I liked using the smallest minnows because I got more bites with them. Generally I got big sunfish of various species, yellow perch, and what in Massachusetts we called calico bass, more properly called black crappie.
Small bait, small tackle. I was using a #10 Eagle Claw gold plated hook, tied onto my eight pound test monofilament line with a clinch knot. A tiny bobber and a single split shot completed my terminal tackle. An inch long minnow was impaled through the lips, and cast into the pond to see what would happen.
The bobber soon disappeared into the depths of the pond. I set the hook, and it clearly was something much larger than a perch or a crappie. I battled the beast for a minute or two when, with the most enormous disappointment at my end, the line went slack. I reeled it in to discover that I was hookless. The creature had bitten through the line.
Mr. Georgopoulis was using large minnows. Big bait, big tackle. He had a #1 hook, snelled with heavy monofilament. He didn't want to mess with small fish. He had enough of that when using earthworms.
Only a few minutes after I lost my hook, Mr. Georgopoulis's bobber disappeared into the depths. Mr. Georgopoulis set the hook, and the battle was joined. After a few minutes the beast was underneath the rocks we were standing on, a chain pickerel close to two feet long. Not trusting the skills of either Nick or I, he got the net and did the deed himself. A big smile was pasted all over his face as he pulled that fish from the water!
As he went to remove the hook, he said, "John, come look at this." I went over to see what he wanted. He said, "Look into his mouth." I did. I saw a #10, gold plated Eagle Claw hook tied by a clinch knot to a short piece of eight pound test monofilament. I borrowed Mr. Georgopoulis's pliers and retrieved my hook.
Many years go by. I am operating Shawn Healy's Sea Pro, idling along looking for cobia or tripletail. Shawn is at the bow, rod in hand. On the end of his line is an Owner SSW hook, on which is impaled a large, live shrimp.
I spot a tripletail lying at the surface on his side. I put the boat in neutral, and point it out to Shawn. He casts the shrimp at the fish. The fish behaves in the desired fashion, and inhales the shrimp. Shawn sets the hook, and off we go. The fish makes a run, then jumps, Shawn gains some line. The fish runs again. Suddenly, disappointingly, the hook pulls out.
Shawn reels in his fishless line. The fish, to my near-astonishment, goes right back to lying on its side at the surface. I tell Shawn, "Put another shrimp on and try that fish again." Shawn does.
Hardly traumatized, the fish again behaves in the desired fashion, and inhales the second shrimp. Shawn sets the hook, and off we go again. This time the hook sticks, and I net the fish. It pulls the scale to eleven pounds, and is the largest fish we catch that day.
Marcia Foosaner and I once went into the no motor zone in the Banana River Lagoon hoping to find some black drum. It took some searching, but we found an area holding fish. We enjoyed good fishing, fooling several of the beasts with black Bunny Boogers.
I helped Marcia secure a fish she caught that was around 25 pounds. As she removed the hook she asked, "What is that? Look on the roof of his mouth." I looked. Something was protruding from the fish's palate.
I took out my pliers and latched onto the object, then pulled it out of the fish's head. It was a barb of a stingray, almost two inches long. All but a half inch was buried in the roof of the mouth of this poor fish. However, the fish continued its day to day activities, feeding aggressively enough to take an artificial fly.
As I removed the barb from the fish its expression changed not at all.
Imagine taking a live blue crab and putting into your mouth. Imagine taking a live pinfish or mullet and putting it into your mouth. While to us these don't seem to be good ideas, fish do these things every single day. It's how they eat.
Clearly, if they experienced pain as you or I did they couldn't do this. Clearly, if they were traumatized by being hooked, they wouldn't immediately start eating again.
A fish has a brain roughly the size of a garden pea. They are incapable of analyzing what's happening to them while at the end of a line. I don't think they enjoy the experience of being caught. But please, don't try and tell me that fish feel pain.
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