The practice of catch-and-release seems to be a commandment, not to be violated. When scientists or environmentalists or even widely admired writers on the sport politely suggest that it sometimes makes sense to keep and eat what is hooked, the reaction can be indignant.

Why is that? What if nature might be better off if we eat fish that are invasive species, for example? Does research show whether fish feel pain?

Read the comments left after each of the six panelists make their point. It is telling to see how “regular” people stand on the issues.

Maybe this will jump start more serious discussion on fish and pain? We’ll see.

Leave a thoughtful comment to this post addressing one of the following issues:

1. Do fish suffer when they are caught using typical fly fishing techniques? (you’ll have to supply your own definition of “suffer”)
2. What type of person would be interested in a book with this title?
3. Is the typical fly fisher cruel? (you’ll have to supply your own definition of “cruel”)

In your comment, please number it 1, 2 or 3 based on which of these three topics you are addressing.

I will draw a lucky winner on Friday, May 14.

Please supply a valid email so I can contact you and get your snail mail address if you are the winner.

There are a lot of imponderables in the annals of angling. You, I’m sure, have attempted to ponder many of them. One of the interesting aspects of fly fishing for this angler, is the cerebral aspect. There are so many variables at work when fishing, it’s a wonder we catch anything.

Have you ever had a particular question about fish behavior that science might be able to answer? How would you like to design your own experiment to answer your burning question? If only there was funding for such unimportant things as angling questions. Well, there just might be!

Eccles (of Turning Over Small Stones fame) said the following:

In the last month or so I have had a few conversations with fish biologists, proper ecologist, evolutionary biologist, physiologist type people. In the banter about this and that a question was asked by one of them which took me back a little.

“What experiments would you like to see done?”

“Eh?” [that was Eccles' reply]

“Well there are some students who are keen to run things and we could possibly rustle up a bit of seed funding if there is some academic rigour attached. The facilities are there so what would you do?”

Eccles is graciously passing on the opportunity to you, the inquisitive angler. Get over to his site, read the post, then answer his two questions. Pretty simple.

I have a quest. The quest involves answering several related questions. I won’t list them all, but the following two questions should give an idea as to the basic gist of them:

• Do fish suffer when they are caught using standard fly fishing techniques?
• Is angling cruel?

I have explored these types of questions in at least four posts on my blog (see links to them at the bottom of this post). And, frankly, I’ve been a bit disappointed at the lack of response. It seems like it is a topic that fly anglers do not want to discuss. I guess I can’t really blame them, who wants to think about their possible cruelty?

Over the years, the discussion has usually hinged on the aspect of whether or not fish feel pain. Various experiments have been carried out, and, depending on where one stands on the issue, various conclusions have been reached. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that “we” are right and “they” are wrong.

Which perfectly illustrates how the issue has been exacerbated through an “Us” versus “Them” mentality. Much of the writing produced in the debate has come from a person who is passionate about one side or the other, typically either someone from the angling community or someone from an animal rights group.

This is as good as spot as any to address two important, and quite different, terms: animal rights and animal welfare. Many groups espousing animal rights believe that animals have equal rights with humans (and in some extreme cases, an animal’s “rights” trump a human’s). The most well known group in favor of animal rights is PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). Animal welfare advocates believe that animals can have benefits to humans, but that the animal should be treated as humanely as possible, give the situation. One of the biggest groups supporting animal welfare is AVMA (American Veterinary Medical Association). These two groups are often at odds with each other.

Many anglers hear the words “animal welfare” and mistakenly think “animal rights” and begin bashing the views of those speaking on behalf of the welfare of animals. In a research paper from 2007 titled “Animal welfare perspectives on recreational angling” by Steven J. Cooke and Lynne U. Sneddon, they state that “informed anglers and fisheries managers can adopt practices to improve the welfare of angled fish.” They do not advocate the eradication of catch and release, but rather suggest that certain methods be observed to reduce potential pain and suffering. Many animal welfare groups are not against recreational angling.

One of the things most often missing in the debate is clear (to the lay person), reasoned (data, not emotion) and unbiased information concerning the issue. Enter Dr. Braithwaite and her book, Do Fish Feel Pain?

To illustrate a point made above, this is from the first paragraph of the preface, in which Braithwaite describes reactions from an Op-Ed piece she published in the Los Angeles Times regarding fish pain:

After the article appeared, the newspaper and I received letters and emails. These were of two sorts. Some told me that I was persecuting anglers by spreading untruths and myths—wasn’t it clear to everyone that fish don’t feel pain? But the others wanted to know why I bothered to investigate the question—wasn’t it clear to everyone that fish do feel pain?

This is an interesting reaction, in which it is clear to pretty much everyone, except for those who are most worried about the potential for scientific results to change their recreational lifestyle, that fish feel pain.

But that wasn’t her point. Rather than tell you about her point, I’ll let her speak for herself.

I had a certain amount of sympathy with both camps. I could identify with those who believed I was threatening the angling community. That was not my intention, but there had been a great deal of inaccurate information written about research on pain in fish so it was understandable that some people were being defensive. On the other hand, how were the others to know that no scientific analysis of even the basics of fish pain had been conducted before the turn of this century?

Those polarized reactions, which also played out on various websites, prompted me to wonder whether there was need for a fuller account of the science behind the fish pain debate. The result is this book.

My goal in writing this book has been to provide the background to promote informed discussion. Like other animal welfare debates, constructively arguing about fish welfare requires that we understand the issues, that we review evidence and discuss this appropriately. In the book, I examine what we know so far about pain in fish, and whether it is meaningful to discuss fish welfare at all. After reading this book, I hope you will be in a position to make up your own mind. I have no axe to grind—I choose to eat fish and I experiment on them, but while I have been fishing in the past, I am not an active angler though I have many friends and colleagues who are.

This is a difficult topic to cover, and one that will take great skill to do it justice. Having spent much time on my own reading, and trying to write, about the topic, I know that it is more than just the science behind pain. There are at least three branches of inquiry involved when tackling the topic: science, psychology and philosophy. Braithwaite also realizes this when she says, “As the book began to take shape, it became clear that the fish pain debate probes questions about science, welfare and ethics.”

I am looking forward to the continued reading, exploring and writing about this new book. From what I have read so far (the preface and chapter 1), I believe Dr. Braithwaite when she says she has no axe to grind. I believe this book could be a great asset to the serious inquirer.

I will probably post updates for each chapter or two (there are seven chapters in the book, containing 184 pages).

The book is published by Oxford University Press. The bulletin from Oxford Press says it’s available May 20. However, Amazon is selling copies (I don’t know if they are shipping yet).

Full disclosure: I received a free review copy, although I do not know the author and am in no way affiliated with Oxford University Press or any of its designees.

http://scarles.org/blog/cutthroat-stalker/1173/fish-pain-here-we-go-again/
http://scarles.org/blog/cutthroat-stalker/1186/hooking-things-survey/
http://scarles.org/blog/cutthroat-stalker/1246/css-double-dog-dare-why-not-birdermen/
http://scarles.org/blog/cutthroat-stalker/2120/gotta-again/

When I first saw Nick Mayer’s work at his Escape Studio, one of the first things I was drawn to was his small sketchbook pages (look at the bottom) he included. Now, I imagine Nick didn’t think these little sketchbook images were all that important when he was designing his website (maybe he did), but they are fascinating to me. I could look at those type of sketchbooks all day, especially the ones with technical notes worked around the sketches.

However, the “real” artwork is some pretty amazing stuff. Nick’s pieces have that “technical” feel to them, with a clean, precise look, but the watercoloring softens them, bringing a warmth and aliveness to each piece. Of most interest, I imagine, to you, would be his collection of fish. He has both saltwater and freshwater fish collections.

Here’s a sneak peek at his latest piece, rainbow trout:

Rainbow Trout - Nick Mayer

and here’s a close-up (click on it to check out the detail, then click on the little green arrow that points down and to the right for an even closer look – wow!):

Rainbow Detail - Nick Mayer

It looks like the majority of his originals are sold, but they do have a note saying “available for commission $1500.” There are some nice looking unframed giclee prints running in size from about 14″ wide ($50) to 40″ wide ($250). They can also be purchased framed. For those with a smaller budget, he has notecards for purchasing.

There are also some great pieces on insects, but I didn’t see any that would be of special interest to the fly fisher with maybe the exception of the dragonfly. I could definitely see some mayflies lending themselves to his style (Nick: hint, hint).

A very cool side note here, something that I think is unique is his Faux Moths Project. This is a collection of moths that he watercolors, then cuts out and mounts in boxes to look like real moths. You can read his detailed description on that page of how he started the project.

He runs Escape Studio apparel store selling shirts, mugs, hats, bags, etc.

You can follow Nick on his Fresh Art Blog.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sometime within the past ten years or so I became interested in native fish. I have nothing against any species, I just like to see fish that are “supposed” to be in a watershed, in that watershed, not some other species occupying that water. This desire to find native species in their native range has taken my fishing buddy and me to some out-of-the-way little creeks—we’re talking about places in the middle of the desert 100 miles from the nearest town. Creeks whose widths are measured in inches, not feet. But it doesn’t seem to matter where we go, how far away from “civilization” we get, we still come across water stocked with non-native species. Many of these places were stocked long before motorized travel was possible. And I’ve wondered what possessed people to stock fish in such places.

Anders Halverson’s new book, An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World, answers that question for me. In a fascinating look at the social and political maneuverings of the late nineteenth century through the present, Anders’ meticulous research lays bare some interesting tidbits of the stocking policies of the United States.

One such gem is that the government was worried about the strength of the nation’s men: that they had “notoriously less hardihood and endurance than the generation which preceded [their:] own” (George Perkins Marsh, congressman and diplomat from the mid-1800’s). This description was given in a report by Marsh under the auspices of the Legislature of Vermont on the Artificial Propagation of Fish. He further stated that “the sports of the chase” (angling being one of them) was a way to increase the hardiness of the Americans. At this time, many waterways were already seeing a decline in fish numbers and the artificial propagation of fish was seen as a way to increase those numbers. With the urge to increase the robustness of its men, and the decline fish population the underpinnings were there for the introduction of non-native species.

Last year Eccles (from the Turning Over Small Stones blog) and I had a discussion about the terms “Fish and Game” and “Fish and Wildlife” as used in various agencies: Why were the terms “fish” and “game” separate? Shouldn’t it just be Game or Wildlife, as in “Utah Game” or “US Wildlife Service” since fish are a type of game and fish are a type of wildlife? Anders informs us that by the 1870s congress formed the United States Fish Commission to help tackle the problem of declining fish stocks, thus becoming the first governmental agency involved with animal husbandry in the US. At a later time, the “game” and “wildlife” were added as the agency expanded. So, in my mind at least, this solves the mystery.

How the rainbow trout became the darling of the US Fish Commission, and just about every other angling agency in the world, is an interesting tale that Anders starts in San Francisco in 1872 with Livingston Stone looking for spawning salmon. He eventually found the McCloud River and began propagating salmon. By 1879 they were looking for a place on the McCloud to begin propagating trout as well. And they did, with astounding success.

Besides the historical ventures Anders skillfully and delightfully takes the reader on, he also dissects the biology of the stocking programs, covering the hardiness of a stock that is constantly used for breeding to whirling disease. He discusses the loss of native species and the response (or lack of it) of individual state fish and game departments, how some of them have switched from stocking to conservation.

This brings up an interesting problem that many fish and game departments need to tackle: what is their responsibility when sportsmen (who pay for licenses whose money is then possibly used to bankroll conservation and restoration instead of stocking), clamor for more catchable fish?

Through all of these topics Anders uses a reporters zeal for facts (there are approximately 475 sources listed in the bibliography) and detachment, thereby keeping an even keel on reporting the facts and not stepping on a soapbox to expound one particular side over another. Even with this professional detachment, there is a keen sense of understanding and compassion shown for the stories he tells. For, if nothing else (but there is a lot of “else”), the book is full of stories told with the storyteller’s art.

Full Disclosure: I have corresponded with Anders a few times by email. I was one of the first couple of anglers to join his new website (*). And when he said he had a book available to be reviewed, I asked for a copy. I don’t have anything to profit from this review except getting a free book. Which I already have.

Purchase the book (links from Anders’ website).

Check out the “Additional Materials” on Anders’ website.

Here is a review from Dave B at Native Trout Angler.

Another review, this one from Sam Snyder and posted on MidCurrent.

Newspaper piece from ColoradoDaily.com.

Information from Yale University Press (publishers of the book).

* This website is Angler’s Life List and Native Fish Network (ALLNFN). A big congratulations to the site for making it into the March 2010 edition of Outside Magazine’s Editors’ Choice top 51 things to do (“For our inaugural list, we’ve gathered 51 of our favorite things into a rollicking compendium of capital ideas, sublime destinations, brilliant equipment, and more.”). ALLNFN came in at #42!

View all my reviews at Goodreads >>

First up is Jared Miller from Streamside Illustrations. He has some fish illustrations that he says he was inspired to draw because of Joseph Tomelleri’s work. He uses the same colored pencil style as Tomelleri, and from what I can see from the web pictures, they’re pretty good quality too (he has close-ups of some of the fish, and you can really see some nice detail). You can view several of his illustrations at his website. I don’t think he has any prints for sale, but what he seems to specialize in is illustrating your fish. Send him a picture and he’ll illustrate it for you. Jared has a blog, but it doesn’t look like he’s updated it in some time. Too bad, because I enjoyed glancing through the posts he does have.

Scott Hale over at Art Creel sent me an email the other day letting me know of his new “90 Fly Fishing Paintings in 90 Seconds” video. This is a great way to see some of the excellent artwork of the nine artists showing and selling work at Art Creel. Once you’ve seen the video, get over to Art Creel and check out your favorites. I love art, but often find it too pricey. There are some very reasonably priced pieces available art Art Creel. (My New Year’s Resolution #27: buy at least one piece of art this year.) A little tucked away section at Art Creel is their blog. I love woodcuts (I’ve tinkered with making a couple myself), and there is an excellent three part post on John Koch’s woodcut “Four Seasons” that goes into some nice depth concerning that woodcut. You should really read it (scroll down a bit until you get to the November 19, post, that’s the first one). John runs his own blog called Trout Lily Studios that I quite admire. If you like reading more in-depth pieces about how an artist thinks and works, subscribe to his blog.

Many of you are probably familiar with Jason Borger’s work at Fish, Flies & Water (art and casting) and Jeff Kennedy of Drawing Flies 365 (painting a new fly every for one year – he does have his book available too). They are collaborating this year on a new project called Drawing Flies 52. Yep, they each draw/paint a new fly once a week for a year. It looks like a fun collaborative in which they each draw/paint the same fly pattern, without knowing what the other is doing. A great wrinkle to this is that they only give themselves 30 minutes to complete the art. (If I had half the talent in ten times the time, I’d be very pleased with myself). They both do a nice job of talking about the technical aspects of their work. Jason also puts up some nice pieces that aren’t art related.