Uncut Angling – Minnesota Barotrauma

Tom schmitt wrote:

The one main area of Aaron’s experiment that needs to be evaluated further is, how does adding the weighted clips alter the experiment.
When releasing fish how many people add weighted clips to their fish?

His experiment was to show 2 things.

1. Less handling after catching the fish is beneficial.
2. A struggling fish will die of exhaustion.

If you release a fish and don’t give them ample opportunity to return to their depth of neutral buoyancy, the will essentially die of exhaustion trying to turn themselves upright. He’s demonstrated what was wrong with the DNR study and proved it.

Nobody clips a weight to a fish but if you give it ample opportunity to return to depth, their chances of survival are far higher than most people expect.

Tom schmitt wrote:

On a third note, it’s too bad that a subject as important as this got high jacked by high witted troll. Amusing at times, ridiculous at others, sad really.

I actually think the troll job made this thread.

Aaron attached the weight clip to the fish to keep the fish upright in the aquarium so it was less stressed than being on it’s side and floating. In this position the fish can equilibrate its swim bladder easier. You can learn about it here:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/5924108/#:~:text=Abstract-,The%20active%20transport%20of%20oxygen%20and%20carbon%20dioxide%20into%20the,as%20a%20counter%2Dcurrent%20multiplier.

Tom schmitt wrote:

When releasing fish how many people add weighted clips to their fish?

I do on fish that are showing visible signs of barotrauma. You attach the weight clip to a fin (I do a pectoral), lower the fish to the bottom or near it and give a yank to pull the weight off of the fin.

grubson wrote:

Great informative video. I disagree with his opinion about live scope not potentially hurting fisheries. He literally defended live scope while catching a limit from one hole.
His experiment about barotrauma was better than the one that the dnr and the Lindner’s did.

. Of course he is going to defend livescope. He’s a tech junkie. I’d like to see him and many other “pros” go old school and see how productive they are.

Most of them were pros, and more importantly great anglers, before livescope came out so they’d still be pretty darn good. Including Aaron.

So what am I missing? I basically see no value to this 2nd video. A dead fish is a dead fish. Didn’t all 5 of his fish need special handling to get them to go to the bottom and he needed to adjust his weight to get the proper weight to help the fish survive?
Even then one of the larger ones died immediately and the other larger one needed multiple attempts.
So he pretty much just confirmed what the DNR study showed that pulling crappies from deep water kills most of them. Five fish is a small sample size but 20% died and the other one would have also died if not for his multiple life saving measures. So really 40% died.

Now if he had done what he did in the first video in holding the crappies mouth up to let air escape and then closing the mouth upon release, that is something that folks could do pretty easy. Maybe a follow up doing this.

Netguy, you assume that if you use a heavy enough weight to get the fish to the bottom that they will survive? From his study, didn’t he need to adjust the weight multiple times so that they remained upright, so just the right amount of weight? Who knows how much weight a 2lb or a 3lb walleye requires, and even a different 2lb may require different weight depending on condition.

I really like what he is doing and have been trying to follow him closely for years. His muskie lure creation was hilarious.

I think the intent of his second video was to show if the fish were upright for several days they had a better chance of surviving than just chucking them in a vertical net. Keeping them upright allows them to absorb the air in the expanded swim bladder (re-equilibrate) without struggling.

gonefishin wrote:

Netguy, you assume that if you use a heavy enough weight to get the fish to the bottom that they will survive?

I’m assuming that getting the fish back to the depth from which they were caught quickly gives them a better chance of surviving than taking many minutes to work them on the surface or fizzing to get them to swim away. Releasing a fish at the depth they were caught should allow the fish to be upright without struggling.

gonefishin wrote:

From his study, didn’t he need to adjust the weight multiple times so that they remained upright, so just the right amount of weight? Who knows how much weight a 2lb or a 3lb walleye requires, and even a different 2lb may require different weight depending on condition.

For his experiment he did. For lowering a fish to the bottom a standard-issue winter fishing depth bomb will work for fish of all sizes or at least up to a 25″-27″ walleye (caught on Rainy Lake). It doesn’t take much weight to lower a fish to the bottom because fish are neutrally buoyant. They regulate their depth by swimming but if they want to stay at a certain depth the swim bladder is adjusted to do this.
Again, I rarely catch fish that suffer from barotrauma because I have learned to stay above the 27-30 foot depth.

So what am I missing? I basically see no value to this 2nd video.

I believe you missed the point. The point was that barotrauma essentially kills the fish internally. Aaron proved that wrong. No matter what he did with weight clips, those fish survived. Except for one. It’s actually very simple to understand. The DNR handling the fish for so long out of the water did more damage than the barotrauma did. His whole point was that the fish aren’t guaranteed to die.

POP has it as I saw it. Putting them in a tank was far harder on them then releasing them like he did in the previous video.

gonefishin wrote:

So what am I missing?

Once the fish get back down to the depth they came from (30 feet), no weight is needed. He didn’t have a 30′ tall “livewell” or the permit to release them in a net.

Wade Boardman wrote:

Of course he is going to defend livescope. He’s a tech junkie. I’d like to see him and many other “pros” go old school and see how productive they are.

His videos on YouTube go back to 2011… if you truly want to see him go old school and see how productive he is, there’s absolutely nothing stopping you. If you just want to rip on a YouTube fisherman and complain about livescope, then carry on.

So yes, in all cases, the longer a fish is out of the water the less chance it has to survive. Even with the quick release back into the water, didn’t Aaron’s video show that all five of the fish would have probably died with out adding the weights and the attention to detail of the release? With the DNR and Aaron’s study, both just show that pulling crappies from deep water kills most of them.

Also, Aaron while trying to prove his point on barotrauma release, also highlighted the bigger problem, how easy it is to find and catch fish using FFS. They saw a fish at +40 feet and Aaron was able to drop directly on that fish and catch it. Without FFS that fish would not have been caught, there would be less dead fish from barotrauma without FFS.

I am not against this technology, but after attending the recent DNR round table, it doesn’t appear that the DNR has a coordinated approach to looking at the affects of new technology or putting a team together to look at this.

There is NO way of knowing whether or not that fish would have been caught without FFS. It could have just as easily swam over the 40 feet under his house. He just got it done faster by seeing it and drilling a hole.

gonefishin wrote:

Without FFS that fish would not have been caught, there would be less dead fish from barotrauma without FFS.

There would also be less dead fish from barotrauma without cozy wheelhouses, tungsten jigs, flashers, 1ft contour map chips, and the internet, where do you want to draw the line?

gonefishin wrote:

Even with the quick release back into the water, didn’t Aaron’s video show that all five of the fish would have probably died with out adding the weights and the attention to detail of the release? With the DNR and Aaron’s study, both just show that pulling crappies from deep water kills most of them.

If the fish can get back down to the depth it came from, then the weight isn’t needed… their swim bladder will keep them there comfortably. The fish in the video couldn’t get back down to 30 feet… because the “livewell” was only a foot deep. If he were to release them into the lake where the could swim back down to 30 feet, the weights wouldn’t have been needed at all.

The first video showed that crappies caught from 30+ feet could swim back down to that depth if taken care of properly. But the question remained if those fish were dying hours or days later from the Barotrauma.

The second video showed that crappies from 30 feet and experiencing barotrauma were able to live for at least 3 days, or however long he had them in that “livewell”.

The DNR/AB video showed crappie caught from deep water mortality near 100%. Aaron’s videos were only to show that percentage was likely inflated due to flaws in their methods. He’s not going to prove anything with sample sizes of 5 and 12.

gonefishin wrote:

So yes, in all cases, the longer a fish is out of the water the less chance it has to survive. Even with the quick release back into the water, didn’t Aaron’s video show that all five of the fish would have probably died with out adding the weights and the attention to detail of the release? With the DNR and Aaron’s study, both just show that pulling <em class=”ido-tag-em”>crappies from deep water kills most of them.

Nobody who is catch and release fishing is putting their fish in a tank, they are putting them back in the lake where the fish swims back down to a level in which they can stabilize and equilibrate. His first video clearly showed that the vast majority went right back down.

The only way to truly know the outcome of this is to track the fish after a release (without handling or holding nets or weights). Straight up release and track. That is the ONLY way we will get accurate results and one that represents a typical experience.

Gonefishin, you have to connect the information from the 2 videos as others have pointed out. The most common objection in video one was that those fish would die from all the trauma. Video 2 basically showed that for 5 out of 6, they did not die from trauma of being reeled up from deep water. They needed the weight to right themselves and start recovering. If allowed to swim back down(video 1), they wouldn’t need the weight.

hossfisher wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>gonefishin wrote:</div>
Without FFS that fish would not have been caught, there would be less dead fish from barotrauma without FFS.

There would also be less dead fish from barotrauma without cozy wheelhouses, tungsten jigs, flashers, 1ft contour map chips, and the internet, where do you want to draw the line?

This here is what no one talks about. Everyone points a finger at forward facing sonar but no one complains about gps contour mapping or any other the other inventions that having made fishing more comfortable, accessible, and easier. I posted in this thread earlier that I would stand behind gps contour mapping leading to more fish being caught over Livescope. Hell I would even say side imaging over Livescope.

I don’t know where we could draw the line in the sand. What we can do though is constantly monitor the health of our lakes, tighten up slots and limits accordingly, further study and investigate deep water fishing, and most importantly educate!

https://www.fishrapper.com/barotrauma-in-freshwater-fish-affects-remedies-best-practices.html
Here is a series of actual academic papers that were compiled because of the initial experiment. If you want to read all of them you will probably need a subscription service to J-store or the like.

grubson wrote:

Sea Grant Florida and NOAA fisheries in CA did a study on barotrauma in crappies? Or salt water fish? Big difference in my opinion.

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Don Meier wrote:</div>
Sea Grant Florida did an article last year on barotrauma and how to mitigate . They used radio telemetry in tracking fish to determine mortality . NOAA Fisheries also did a study in California radio tracking also . Not every fish survive . But a good number do . Descending devices are key to releasing fish to the depths they were caught . Science is there with proof ,all one has to do is read the articles . Believe it or not they are backed up with scientific data .

What’s the big difference ? The obvious one is one is salt water and the other is fresh . Other than that barotrauma is the same around the world it affects ALL fish the same way whether fresh or salt water . Admittedly some fish are more adversely affected by it .