Ban Cruel Fishhooks

[Shane Boese]

Ban cruel fishhooks

Brian Williams
March 19, 2007 11:00pm
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A FEDERAL Government conservation organisation is asking fishermen to stop using stainless steel fishhooks, saying they are cruel.
They also say the hooks cause unnecessary loss of marine life.
Stainless steel hooks become a problem when fish break away from the line, leaving the hook stuck in their mouth. The hooks do not rust and often cause the fish to starve to death.
Coastcare, a National Heritage Trust-funded group, wants corrodible hooks to be the ones always used by anglers.
Such hooks would rust, hopefully quickly enough for the animal to survive.
Spokesman Brian Scarsbrick said yesterday that snagged animals such as sharks, dolphins and turtles often could not eat because of old hooks and many eventually starved or, in weakened condition, fell victim to predators.
Many commercial and recreational fishermen were embracing marine conservation and this was another logical step, he said.
Sunfish North Moreton branch secretary Bill Turner said stainless steel had been introduced about 30 years ago in an effort to stop hooks rusting in the tackle box.
"Stainless steel hooks hold their point better, but I gave up using them years ago," Mr Turner said.
"I personally don't see any advantage in them."
He called on all members to abandon stainless steel.
"Our annual general meeting is coming up this month, and I'm willing to make a recommendation for Sunfish to adopt this as policy," he said.
Mr Turner said stainless steel lasted for an indefinite period and anglers should do anything that would help species survive better.
Ron Hunter, owner of Dive Forster in northern NSW, said stainless steel was a major problem, especially in sharks.
"Up to 50 per cent of all sharks observed have some form of attachments in their mouths," Mr Hunter said.
"An ordinary steel hook will rust away and cause less problems than a stainless steel hook, which can stay in place for up to two years, in which time the shark will often die."
It was unclear how long different types of hooks took to rust, but it was thought smaller steel hooks took about six months

[Shane Boese]

I have no problem with this as i have not used S/S Hooks for years for the same reason's as stated above.

Regards
Shane Boese

[billfisher]

Stainless steel hooks have some uses, eg for lines left rigged on boats and for skirted trolling rigs. For the latter S/S is hard to do without as non S/S hooks will lose its sharpness after a few hours trolling and rusting hooks will stain the skirts.

As to survivability of fish I don't think it is a simple as the claims mentioned. Rusting hooks could be toxic to fish. Stainless hooks may drop out or the fish may be unaffected depending on where the hook is lodged. After all stainless steel is used in medical implants. I should know I have an S/S plate in my wrist!

[trueblue]

I tried stainless steel hooks not so long back when I got onto a bunch reasonably cheap. They definitely don't rust in the tackle box, but they are also soft and many of the conventional ones for basic fishing come out of the box with damaged. Many of those were blunt as well. I gave up using them for normal fishing. Much better with chemically sharpened hooks.

Totally different story for bill fishing applications. Much higher quality hook, much stronger and you get what you pay for in that respect, and something I am sure you couldn't do without.

[Moonlighter]

To qoute an authority of some note, Ern Grant, author of Guide to Fishes and other bibles for the fisherman and scientist alike:

"Because I always turn my excess fish loose by snapping or cutting the trace, releasing them with the hook still in them, I have copped criticism on grounds that these stainless hooks won't rust out the way black ones do. But - it just doesn't work that way. It has been my consistent experience in warm-temperate and tropical waters (working on fish from only a few ounces weight up to a 410 lb groper that mouth-hooked fish lose their hooks in captivity within only six days. A small, clean crater forms about the point of entry, widening progressively until the hook drops out: and the fish is good as new again." (Grant's Fishes of Australia, EM Grant, 1987, p 447)

Whilst I don't use stainless hooks, Ern Grant has vast experience and has conducted more research with these matters than all the rest of these people put together.

Facts and proven research, rather than perception, should be the basis of these sorts of decisions, don't you reckon?

[PinHead]

it must be great when your job consists of worrying about fish hooks corroding in fishes mouths...what a complete non productive waste of time.

[sarg]

A fairly reasonable request for most applications.

Andrew

[PADDLES]

agreed sarg, i reckon it's a reasonable ask too, ss hooks have been a no no for freshwater fishos for a long time so why not carry it over to the briney. it sounds like there's a couple of good reasons for using ss but why not just use black anyway? they'd have to ban them from sale to do this effectively, imagine all the tackle joints having to get rid of all their stock.

[Poodroo]

I certainly have no problems with losing stainless hooks. I stopped using them some time ago myself. Approaching from a different angle however if there is a push to stop use of stainless hooks and if it does happen then perhaps the greenies may take this as a win and then start attacking fishing from more angles perhaps? I know the whole sport has been frowned upon by the greenies for a long while.

Poodroo

[Matt_F]

Ear Grant manages to get the scientific name for the common coral trout wrong. He labels a photo of a common coral trout, Plecropoma maculatum (p275). It is actually Plectropomus leopardus, the inshore bar cheek coral trout is Plectropomus maculatus.

So maybe he is not always right.

While one or a few fish may have lost a hook in this way in captivity it does not necessarily mean they all do in the wild, don't you reckon?

[cbs]

Ern grant's guide to fishes contains a stack of errors and is incomplete in some cases. I've seen plenty of fish where he says they shouldn't be for example. Certainly not scientific quality information.

Oh yeah, I don't use stainless either.

[435_Mark]

Their is plenty of evidence in recent experiments that hooks do drop out. The articles in Modern Fishing on N.S.W. bream experiments made a point of mentioning this. Which would you rather have stuck in your gob, a ss hook or a rusty steel one? For my money the stainless hooks have their place and any mention of them being "cruel" is an argument that leads to all hooks being labelled"cruel" (which is where I think the argument is heading).

[Scaly1]

FYI from another forum which noticed a biased ABC story on the matter


The following is an e-mail which I sent to members of the Federal Minister for the Environment's National Oceans Advisory Group expressing concern about this story (and the resourcing of these groups). I am the recreational fishing representative on this committee.

Recfish Australia will be raising the issue as it is a national one, but one that must be addressed.

"I am extremely concerned that a Commonwealth funded body should be making accusations such as this in a public forum without ANY attempt being made to consult with the groups concerned. This appears to be part of an unprofessional, emotive and irresponsible campaign as part of a grey nurse shark agenda which is in reality resource partitioning between dive charters and other users of the resource.

The FRDC has invested a lot of money in the Released Fish Survival group which has investigated with scientific rigour ways to improve the survival of released fish and it is being embraced and supported by a very large part of the recreational fishnig community. There is lots of information available at http://www.info-fish.net/releasefish/default.asp if anyone would like to check it out.

The truth is that very few anglers use stainless steel hooks. Following is a comment from the owner of a chain of tackle stores being sent to the ABC -

For those who saw the rubbish on ABC News tonight re us and stainless hooks, here's the email I sent to them just now:

A couple of minutes' worth of news tonight on how recreational anglers should stop using stainless hooks and including comment on how they lose 40million stainless hooks each year. All utter rubbish. I invite you to contact me for credible input re recreational fishing in future. We sell hundreds of hooks to recreational anglers every day. At an educated guess, about 1/100 of one percent are stainless - if that. Given time I could give you an exact figure. The story was completely wrong but no input was given from the recreational anglers - which ostensibly the story was all about!

To be showing COMMERCIAL shark hooks (as in the ABC story) and then attempting to attribute a behaviour accross the entire recreational fishing community is extremely poor. Yet many of these anti-fishing groups are being very well funded by the Commonwealth government.

I would appreciate the views of the Minister on this matter.

It is extremely frustrating to be working so hard and so responsibly to improve angling practices (on a shoestring budget) only to have to put up with irresponsible cheap shots by highly resourced radical groups.

A most disturbed
Frank Prokop"

http://www.info-fish.net/releasefish/default.asp

[ratherbefishin]

Fair Dinkum, some people will have a go at anyone or anything.
Ern Grant is human like the rest of us, he makes mistakes, lots of 'em.
We all do, every day.
But seriously he has also produced the best reference book for australian fish that Ive ever found. If anyone knows of a better one, then please do tell.
Meanwhile he related his experience and related it in a way of reasonably scientific albeit casual observation. If you want to refute his observations then at the very least you should repeat his experiment and better still measure a few variables and further his work.
Dont just bad mouth it on the basis of your petty reckonings.
The Tall Poppy syndrome is alive and well.

BTW how many of you have caught fish with hooks still lodged? I'm not making any assertions either way but you would think with the number of bust-offs, bite-offs and cut-offs you'd see a few more. Maybe there is something in old Ern Grants theory!

As for SS hooks, I say horses for courses, if you really need them for specific trolling or other purposes then use them, if you dont need them then why not give the fish a better chance at survival.

[flyfisho]

I reluctantly buy into this disscussion, but isn't the underlying problem here in regard to fish survival , how long the hook remains in the fish?, I would imagine that promoting barbless hooks would be more practical ? , in my opinion most competant anglers can land fish with or without barbs, and for those freight-trains that bust off set lines, poor drag settings and serious tiger country ,a quick head shake should see the hook dislodge (depending on hook placment) in most circumstances, it would definatly dislodge better than one with the barb intact, and almost certainly quicker that having it rust out.

[the gecko]

While I dont use ss hooks either, Im more concerned with where this all is heading.......

The next push will be for barbless hooks all round.
Then more marine sanctuaries.
Then fishing licence costs to cover the red tape.
It all sounds like greenies who dont fish, trying to rule our pastime.

Sorry for my pesimism. Im a believer that most fish can throw a hook in 6 days.
I do agree theres not enough scientific research on it tho.

I suppose we should applaud sunfish for adopting the no ss hook policy.
Its better to take the initiative and make decisions before they are forced on us.
Like everyone who fishes, I care about survival of the species.

Im just sick of minorities having more say than majorities.

OK my whinge is over.

Andrew

[blaze]

just to muddy the water a bit more
IMO a fish has a far better chance of survival after being caught on a stainless hook than if that fish was played for extended periods of time on ultra light line.
cheers
blaze

[tigermullet]

just to muddy the water a bit more
IMO a fish has a far better chance of survival after being caught on a stainless hook than if that fish was played for extended periods of time on ultra light line.
cheers
blaze

I certainly agree with that but I have a preference for stainless steel hooks. For estuarine fish, especially bream, they work just fine and can have their barbs crushed very easily without the problem of brittle steel hooks snapping off when crushing or having their points bent over by hard boney mouths.

Stainless steel might be a tad more expensive but they do last longer in the tackle box, keep their points better during fishing and this leads to less hook changing. The last quality is important at night for those of us whose eyesight is not what it used to be.

Having said that, I don't really care if stainless steel hooks are banned. I will still crush the barbs and put up with more frequent changing of hooks but I do think that the argument about stainless steel versus mild steel is flawed and is a result of bad science or nil science and is just speculation.

[rando]

Brad Smith well known local guide was instrumental in supplying the DPI with the breeding stock for their research on mangrove jack. He supplied them with many live jacks .

He told me, that the fish are able to either pass or eject the hooks in only a matter of hours, even when deeply hooked .
He joked about the two way trade, he would supply them with jacks ,and they would collect his hooks from the bottom of their tanks and return them.

[435_Mark]

A just finished collaborative study on Flathead post release survival is available on http://www.info-fish.net/releasefish/browsetopics.asp?mode=viewtopic&name=Research%20Reports
Incidence of deep hooking for Flathead is low. Even so for deep hooked fish hooks were observed to be either thrown or pass through the majority of fish kept for observation. The advice is to snip the line as close to the hook as possible and leave the hook in. Various studies are cited in the report that show a substantial increase in survival if this is done.

[mariner_22]

Get rid of them is what I say. I personally never use them for the reasons listed and don't think it is asking much to put a ban to them.

[minno]

Stainless steel hooks Dont waste away, and yes, some fish can throw them. But for the ones that are hooked in the wrong place, its death for the marine creature. Wouldnt it be fair to say, that our ethics on catch and release is pointless, when we want too catch it next time. BAN THEM! Hear is some food for thought. When a fish dies with a stainless steel hook in them, other fish eat them, and because of the life of the hook, it could have a second and a third
chance and so on to do more damage.

Bring on the fast desolving hook.



minno

[435_Mark]

minno,
I hear where you are coming from. But there is no evidence to suggest that stainless hooks are any worse for the fish then steel ones. If a fish is going to die because of the hook location then it doesn't matter a bean whether it is a stainless hook or a steel hook. I've pulled tailor off the beaches at Fraser that have had a set of gangs in their gob and are still able to feed. I'm all for treating the fish you catch ethically and following the advice for best release practise but I don't see banning stainless hooks as having any practicle benefit.

Cheers,

Mark

[minno]

www.landline.com.au (http://www.landline.com.au) Should help in this matter. Yes I see your point about the hook being in a fatal spot. This can not be helped. But at leasted the normal hook
wont cause any more damage.



minno

[Derek Bullock]

This argument is a bit like the similar one on lead sinkers. I wonder when they are going to be banned as well.

Arguments from both sides appear good however in lots of cases lacking credibility.


Derek

[Flex]

Im sure a small stainless hook hanging out the side of a bream's mouth for a couple of weeks before it fell out wouldn't cause too many to die.

But, it's my personal belief that very large large stainless hooks should be totally banned. I have personally caught a large turtle once with a big stainless hook stuck down its throat. Granted it was still feeding as it took my bait. But it was one of the lucky ones.
I imagine alot of stainless hooks used are the really large ones for shark fishing. Mainly to save money as you can easily re-use em. Do a search of the net and look at all the pictures of sharks,dolphins,turtles that have died/suffered from having these massive hooks lodged in their throats.

IMO there is no need to use stainless hooks.