Stomach Pumps

[tomitrout]

Let me get this straight...we spend our time trying to trick a fish into eating something that isn't even food only to impale them with a hook and pull them around to near exhaustion. And to top that off we feel we must reward them by removing the real food they worked efficiently to consume...what kind of diabolical creatures we flyfishers are?

Mo , gotta agree with what you say , i think , any evil barstaqge that has to use a device like that has got to be very insecure on their abilities and a black mark on our sport.

Sorry, I just gotta roll my eyes at this. :roll:

After all that Mo describes that we do to the fish, stalking it, fooling it, impaling it with a hook, and then doing battle....to draw the line of moral outrage at using a stomach pump on one or two fish is laughable.

Fishing is blood sport. If your line in the sand is pumping the stomach, but everything else we do to the precious little trouts is a.o.k. in your book, I just gotta say....wow.

Maybe ya'll should snip the hooks off your flies at the bend and fish dries only, just count the takes you get for your end of day tally. Or maybe even that's too far since you've then caused the fish to expend unwarranted energy to inspect and take your hookless fly. We all know what delicate little creatures the trouts are.

 

[FarmerDave]

Great response tomi. I can't even argue with it. But I still think it is just a lame gadget.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

Can we pump the owner of this post Just to see what he has eaten?

It's probably not important and neither is doing it to any fish.

 

[nimrod]

I've never used one but having just seen a picture of a brookie eating another brookie almost of the same size (or a brown trout swallowing a prickly panfish) I can't imagine a skinny tube being an issue.

 

[springer1]

I've never had any desire to pump the stomach on any fish. I just want to get it back in the water as quickly as possible, without any further stress.

+1

 

[RLeeP]

I've never used a stomach pump and I'm pretty sure I never will.

Two reasons...

1) I don't really care what the trout has been eating. From GPS mapping to the 3,650,912 resident fly fishing experts on the internet to fly lines that are designed in such a way that they barely touch the guides on the cast and shoot like poop through a goose and advances in tippet material formulation that, just in my time fishing have doubled or tripled the average strength of our tippets, we already have more than enough tools at our command. The fish deserve to maintain whatever edge remains them in the contest.

2) If someday, a superior life form arrives on our spinning orb and decides, against our volition, to pump our stomachs to gain information on our diets, etc, I want to at least have the opportunity to try to use the Golden Rule defense to dissuade them from pumping my stomach. I couldn't do this if I had a history of using a stomach pump on trout. I'd be a hypocrite of the first order. So, I don't...

 

[gfen]

Rleep sums it up nicely.

If I were a real biologist, doing real biologist nonsense that required me to sample the actual food fish were eating, then maybe.

I'm not. I'm a guy in rubber pants waving a stick in the air. At what point am I just being a jackhole and torturing animals so I can be an elite fisherman?

Pretty sure the stomach pump is about it.

Keep some perspective about what you're actually doing.

#protip

 

[FarmerDave]

Just ask yourself, would it be needed on bluegills? :lol:

 

[tomitrout]

At what point am I just being a jackhole and torturing animals so I can be an elite fisherman?

Pretty much at that moment when you've stuck that fish with that pointy little hook on the end of your line...unless you're figuring to harvest your quarry.

 

[WildTigerTrout]

I have never used a stomach pump and don't intend to in the future.

 

[Acristickid]

If find this ridiculous. You know why? Because you already caught the fish dummy. Guess what there hitting on what they just took. Hahahahaha.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

Dam, I was hoping the owner of this post would figure that out. Thanks Acristickid for spilling the flies (beans).

I'm pretty sure that if you squeeze a little of his/hers poop out and see corn - Guess what there feeding on?

 

[pcray1231]

I don't do it. Something extra to carry that just ain't worth it.

That said, I've got no problem with it either. Ok, maybe if the water is warm, you don't wanna handle it that long. Or if you know the fish is starving or something, not good. But in most cases, no problem.

I care about improving the % of fish that survive angler encounters. Not too concerned about their comfort level during the ordeal, though. As someone said, this is a blood sport. If you are worried if they feel a little pain, get nervous, or miss a meal, well, you shouldn't be dragging them around on pointed hooks. In the end, I want to preserve fisheries and populations, not individual fish.

 

[PatrickC]

Soooo I guess this would be the wrong place to roll out my new line of flexible sigmoidiscopes for trout...... Trout need a good colonoscopy once in a while too you know :-D

 

[PennypackFlyer]

Pat, you cold always test it on yourself to see if it works!

 

[PatrickC]

PennypackFlyer wrote:
Pat, you cold always test it on yourself to see if it works!

See, now you're thinking. With all of this crap going on in medicine, I figure we gotta come up with ways to cut health care costs. So, I have come up with a couple of ideas.

My 1st idea was for the home vasectomy kit. You actually get 3 kits in 1. You use the 1st 2 to practice on your cat and your dog and then you are up...

See, the home colonoscopy kit could be the same way. Shoot, if you can snake the colon of a brook trout...a human colon is nothing!

 

[osprey]

aKid.........exactly......if you are that bloodthirsty that you need to know what the trout ate beside what you caught it on you are not only insecure........you're NUTS!!!!!!

 

[JohnPowers]

well. we don't know how harmful it is. a blood sport? haven't drawn blood all season. How about ripping their heads off? I got a deal with the fish. if I can fool them, fight them to the net, they get released quickly. I got a line....you got no line? sticking a tube into a trouts stomach? no way.

 

[PennypackFlyer]

Since the owner of this post has not made any comments...I'm led to believe that he either got scared off or never had any intentions of using a stomach pump on trout. It's like... he only wanted to read our reactions.

 

[LetortAngler]

A while back when I was doing some research on big spring I used it a few times to get a match on midge colors and sizes, but after later realizing that I really didn't even need it. Once you know your stream(s) well you won't need it, whenever inserting the pump, do not go further than an inch into the throat, pump once, and release. One pump is usually enough