Question:
Ross: Good morning. Enjoying the Q&A feature. Here’s one that I’ve thought about quite a bit: If you decide to keep a fish what is the best way to kill it quickly and humanely: a priest, or bleed by cutting the gills, or ike jime, or ?
Want you to know that reading your daily reports …… Check it first thing in the morning and start the day thinking about getting just little better that day so I can book Unit 1 and float a line through the Big Bend. Thank you Gratefully, VK
Answer 1:
(Photos below of Big Bend Pool…)
From time to time especially in the Taupo rivers you will catch a wonderful fish which is fat and healthy and you are due at a bbq that evening and taking a fish for guests to enjoy is the perfect thing to do. I know I kill my fare share of fish from the Taupo rivers and release all which is caught in the backcountry. Fresh smoked fish from the Tongariro can taste amazing and an angler should not feel bad about taking fish home from this fishery as it is all part of a cycle which must happen.
There are many ways to kill a trout as there are many ways to skin a cat but we wont get into that as you all might start checking my fly box for the wifes moggy. I over the years have hit the trout on the head with a rock, spiked them with a ike spike and cut their throats all trying to achieve the same purpose.
The good Lord blessed the Tongariro with thousands of perfectly weighted boulders which we use to hit the fish on the crown of the head which is without a doubt the most used method by anglers. Hitting your trout with a decent rock once or twice will crush the trouts brain and the fish will stop moving and eventually die. I am no scientist but I actually think this may be a bad way for the trout to die as you are only stopping it’s brain and not stopping the heart from supplying the rest of the body with blood and energy to keep riggling? I know which ever way you do it there will be a short period of time when your fish will display signs of life but you must remember it is only nerves and they will soon also be dead.
If you are going to kill your trout this way make sure you use a decent sized solid rock and ensure that he is fairly dead. In the past I have found myself in situations where there is only pumice available and this light weight rock does not give you a decent whack no matter how hard you hit the thing. This is where a wooden priest would be great. Quite I often I have returned to pick up my fish once finished fishing the pool only to find the bugger swimming about in the rock pool I put him in to keep him fresh.
One fish which I will always remember was a nice little hen I caught in the Swirl pool one morning. Upon landing her I noticed a length of cord running through it’s mouth and out it’s gills!! Someone had already caught it and put on the side of the river to take home and it decided to get a second wind and get going, after I saw this I jut had to let her go. In general they are tough and the will to regain breath and get going is high so make sure your catch is quite dead and safely secure.
I have seen guys cut the throat of the fish to bleed it out for eating or smoking purposes but I don’t use this method as it is not a fast effective way to kill a fish. If you feel your fish must bleed whack it with a stone first so at least it is not conscious while bleeding out everywhere. I suppose it would be like someone cutting your throat and you still being alive!!! Of coarse eventually your fish will die but not after alot of stress which it does not need to have.
The most effective way that I have seen to dispatch most trout would be the Ike spike which is commonly used with sea fish but not with trout. If you carry a small pocket knife or length of aluminium this will also work and be effective to kill your fish. The idea is to pierce the brain of the fish which kills it quickly but I also like to twist it around and take out the spine thus totally disabling the fish. I usually get a firm grip on the fish and insert your spike or knife behind the eye on a diagonal slant, this should find the brain and follow through to the spine. You will know when you get it right as the fish will squirm for a second or two then lay stone dead, if you don’t get it right it will riggle all over the bank until you hit with a rock.
Basically all methods we have talked about will work ok but I would prefer not to see guys cutting throats for the purpose of trying to kill fish. By all means bleed your catch after one of the other methods have been carried out. In some extreme cases which has made me walk away and feel sorry for trout is when anglers are scared to loose their special spot and fish simply get turned up the bank and left to suffocate. I have seen this happen on different rivers which have Bridge pools and surely it is not too much to ask to have some respect for the sport and the animal you are catching and kill it reasonably quickly.
Something to think about which we usually don’t?
Tight lines
Andrew Christmas
Answer 2:
Like most anglers my preferred method is a sharp tap on the head with a priest….if you don’t routinely carry one there are normally suitable rocks or pieces of wood lying along the river bank. For those new to fly-fishing it’s called a priest because you use it to ” administer the last rites” to the trout .The important thing is to kill the fish quickly and with enough force to end it’s life with a single blow.
In your part of the world (USA) I believe it’s also common practice to bleed the fish to help protect the quality of the flesh. Once you have decided to kill your fish { especially if you intend to carry on fishing } then look after it properly and keep it as cool as possible. In winter I normally carry a stringer and keep the fish submerged in running water. In summer I sometimes keep a bag of ice in the truck in a fish bin and will cover the fish with this until I return home at the end of the day to gut and clean them properly.
Tight Lines
Mike