pan fish

Question
I was fishing and i saw people catching pan fish like blue gill and perch and putting them back on the hook to catch northern....is that legal?

Answer
Dear Desirae,
    
  So what you saw was people using one lind of fish to catch another, correct. Thats the way it is in their world, eaten & be eaten. Not fair one might say, but thats the way it is. Through out man's short history of fishing, first with spears, then the great leap to hooks, poles, cotton twine, and net making, he has continually caught more & more fish. Today we practice a form of fishing that is mostly for sport, not that "If we don't catch a fish, we are gonna starve tonight", like in days of old when fish became a major food source. We now fish for fun & for money, think of all the tuna cans on every shelf in every country. Thats Big Money. Tina is the largest selling fish in the world. Recently a single BigEye or Bluefin Tuna sold for $80 thousand, and they go up to $100 thousand dollars for one fish.

  I fish private commercial off Hawaii. I am one of not too many guys who will fish down as deep as we do. We fish for the Hawaiian Long-Tailed Red Snapper, called the "ONAGA" locally, down 600 feet to 1500 feet down, we anchor & we use chopped pieces of sqiud, chunks of small fish, and sometimes whole fish as bait. It takes almost 4 to 5 minutes for my lead to hit bottom, I use about 10 hooks on each main lines at 3 different stations on the boat. But sometimes only one person can fish because of the currents are going to strong or in the wrong direction. We spend lots of time get out of being tangled up with each others lines.

 When I fish up on the surface trolling for the big Marlin, Tuna & others large fish, my very first choice for a bait is a "Live Small Skipjack Tuna" At least 10 pounder or bigger. I really quickly turn him upside down after I have just caught him, then i run a small wire in near one eye & it comes out the other, this I turn into a sort of bridle. This does not seem to harm the small tuna, but they seem to live longer as you troll them behind your boat. The trick is the same anywhere, you got to get the fish you want to catch eat whatever you can get it to eat. Fish eat each other all day long & all night long. When you are nice and warm in your bed at night, there are millions and millions of fish being eating by other fish every minute. They eat their own kids. It would be a short rough life (if you were a fish). I mean they live in constant paranoia of being eaten by someone bigger than they are. And some times lots of small fish get together & eat a larger fish. So no fish is out there swimming around thinking of anything else but eating another fish & watching there own tail, so they don't become lunch.

   So to put it in a nutshell for you, unless there is some unheard of law that stops you from using one fish to catch another, as cruel & mean it looks to you, it will continue. Thats just the way it is. I grew up fishing in Florida, I had several cane poles of my own & I would catch everything that moved. I dug up my own worms to go fishing with, minnows & tadpoles, crawfish too. I would catch grasshoppers & crickets, anything was worth a try, put them in a jar to go fishing with them as the bait the next morning. Fishing, what is it exactly that drives us wild about it? I have thought upon this and I believe its something like this.

 "Its quite a good feeling of success or something I guess, after you catch a fish by getting him to eat what you offer him. They are not dumb, but we are just a "little" bit smarter, not much."
 
 I just hope that we are smart enough, to make sure what we do have left and that we will always have fish. Fish to catch & eat, fish to watch and just marvels at their beauty.
            


             Your Finny Friend, Randy "Onagafish"