In Part 1 of this series we looked at catch-and-release best practices gleaned from Jacob Brownscombe’s recent paper in Fisheries Research(1). In the previous post we went from catching the fish through to documentation. In this post we’ll continue with a look at methods of assessing fish condition and various…
A recent scientific article in the journal Fisheries Research by Jacob Brownscombe et. al.(1) goes through the latest science behind successful catch-and-release best practices. The article entitled “Best practices for catch-and-release recreational fisheries – angling tools and tactics” contains key tactics for releasing fish back into the wild that will…
The five Ws (Who, What, Where, When and Why) are the basic questions that can be asked to get a complete story on a subject. If that subject happens to be fishing, asking these questions may help us with our ultimate goal – catching more fish. Let’s break them down……
In my area of Southwestern Ontario, nearby lake fishing consists of the Great Lakes (Huron, Erie and their “little” brother St. Clair) or smaller reservoirs. Weather permitting and with the right boat, the Great Lakes present some of the finest fishing in the world and we are truly fortunate to…
I’ve been doing some background research on making artificial fish habitat as part of our conservation activities for our local B.A.S.S. club (Forest City Bassmasters). While sifting through some of the scientific literature I came across S.J. Cooke and D.P. Philip’s (eds.) book entitled “Centrarchid Fishes: Diversity, Biology, and Conservation.”[1]…
I recently built a Secchi disk (see link for instructions) for water clarity measurements. A Secchi disk has four quadrants painted black and white and is 20 cm (freshwater model) in diameter. The disk is lowered into the water using a line marked in feet or meters and the point…
Fish movement is keyed to two main factors, temperature and the oxygen content of the water. Fish will seek out areas of a water-body that satisfy both of these needs. While the coldest water can hold the most oxygen (see Table 1) the cycles of a lake can dramatically alter…
How old is this fish? This is a question I’ve heard asked many times and unfortunately the answer is generally not that easy to come up with. Fish, like every other living thing, will have different growth rates depending on a host of factors including: genetics, average water body temperature,…
Chemoreception in fish, i.e. gustation and olfaction or more simply taste and smell, can play a large role in fishing success. While all fish can likely taste to some degree, taste would not be considered to be a primary means of identifying food for most fish. The one great exception…
When I started researching about hearing in fish I really started to get bogged down in a lot of biology and physics, things like bone conduction, transmission of sound in water and inverse square laws come to mind. After a bit of this I realized that for our purposes as…
