Northwest Fishing Reports

I hate cruelty to animals. I absolutely despise it! Nothing would make me happier than to punish someone who has tormented animals, but here is my dilema. You catch a nice trout and want to take it home for dinner. The fish is flopping around, to the point that it is almost impossible to dislodge the hook. You want to gut it as soon as possible, or at least get that darned hook out, but need to kill the fish. Many people give the fish a nice hard whack on the head at this point. This is my problem. If I try to do this, the fish twitches, but sometimes the first blow will not do the fish in. At this point, I want to get the fish out of his misery as soon as possible, and sometimes it takes an extra couple whacks to do this. I want to finish the job on the first "whack," as I do not want the fish to suffer. I tend to use what is handy for the job (ie a rock). Any suggestions?

Joe (aka beerman)

Knife into the brain will do the trick. I've seen them do that to huge mako sharks on that shark hunter show, and there's a lot more room for error on those big boys. It may still twitch, but it won't be feeling a thing.

I put my fingers through both sides of the gills and pull the head all the way back towards the back of the fish quickly... snapping the neck.

then throw the fish on ice til we go to shore for a rest stop.
then clean the fish while waiting on fishing buddy to get back from the bathroom, outhouse or bush.


tc,
Road

What I do is stick my thumb down his throat and snap it back towards the tail. When you hear a crunch noise, you've snapped the neck. After doing so Iv never seen the fish twitch or jump around. Its kind of an old school thing, I learned from my grandfather, and my girlfriends grandfather does it as well

I've used both the neck break or sharp implement through the head, either way if it twitches like in a seizure that is just various random nerve impulses firing off but nobody is home. Like if you have ever severed the head clean off a live fish..like with a cleaver. I really think the term humane killing is an oxymoron myself. I once heard someone at a organic feed store ask the butcher if he knew if the animals were killed humanely.....i mean really, if you torture the animals it will spoil the meat...or so I've heard.

The nice thing about breaking the neck as opposed to piercing the brain is that there is a lot less blood usually.

:cyclops:

Usually fish find themselves swallowed and digested slowly so a blow to the head or suffacation is probably less stressfull or painfull. Ofcourse I agree and prefer a blow to the head.