before i leave for work for the week this question keeps cropping into my head as im seeing it more and more these days

i dont have a pic but ill try explain it as best as i can.

when fishing from the bank i usually see some fish coming in close swimming really slow and not eating but there scalers are dark and sometimes i can see a white marking and sometimes they looked bruised as if someone starting laying into them after a night on the town.

i always considered it to be fish fighting but ever since im seeing it more and more. when i was up in aberdeen another angler was fishing quite close to me and i just happened to ask him about it

and he looked at me and just held up his hands and said thats why


is this really the case i know most times i try to release without letting the fish leave the water and on occasions where i have to use a net or if i have to handle the fish to try bring some life back into it i always wet my hands

so is this a disease or just people handling with dry hands ?

and its not just small fish ive seen it on some big fish aswell

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id rather be snorting coke of a hookers ass but fishing looks better on my cv

Reaper,
probably all of those will contribute to fish being sub standard.
Interestingly when i fished the driffield beck you could see silver flashes on the flanks of many fish. This was caused by people picking the fish up and handling it. I don't believe it will make too much difference if the hands are wet or dry (wet would be better) and nets certainly have an impact.
Last week i saw a documentary about managing chalkstreams and the keeper was adamant that fish handling kills them. However i rarely see dead fish on thr streams i fish.
The ultimate way of catching and releasing fish should be to simply use barbless hooks and release them without actually touching the fish. But this isn't always possible.
A conundrum hey?

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Distributor for Terenzio Silk and Artificial Silk Fly Lines - Pay distributor retail price.

yup. especially when its a swallowed fly i havent seen them turn upside down.

can they actually recover from this or is it permanent

also i always fish barbless never really been in the situation where ive used a barb as its just so much easier for release methods and ok some fish might come off but just gives that bit of determination to keep going

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id rather be snorting coke of a hookers ass but fishing looks better on my cv

the white marking could be cotton wool fungusSaprolegnia sps. due to poor water quality caused by fungi, poor hygiene, overfeeding etc these symptoms are internal affecting liver,heart etc and are well advanced by the time the symptoms appear,it may not be that but could be ,

bruising appearence could be slight ulceration on the skin ???

as phil says above poor handling etc could lead to all this ..

it should be a mandatory requirement to take some sort of test on welfare of fish when purchasing a license ????

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WHEN YOU LEAVE THE RIVER, TAKE NOTHING, AND LEAVE ONLY FOOTPRINT'S!!!

THA CAN TELL A YORKSHIREMAN ,BUT THA CAN'T TELL HIM MUCH !!

Careless handling is very likely the cause & if the marks are very white it is nearly certainly Saprolegnia fungus. With care fish can withstand repeated capture & release. I've just returned from Montana & Yellowstone where the local hotspot fisheries are hammered over the summer. In such places most of the fish must be hooked, landed & returned dozens of times a season. Some showed signs of careless unhooking (barbed hooks?) but most I caught looked fine; the average USA angler seems to be well versed in catch & return techniques. Unfortunately in the UK, particularly on some still waters I've seen apauling handling; one guy using a towel (dry) because he said it stopped the fish slipping out of his hands. At one time I used a Ketchum release tool to unhook fish, but found the protracted playing time required to sufficiently subdue the fish probably caused more distress than quick netting & rapid unhooking, preferably in the net & in the water.
Cheers, Dave

There is a number of ways fish show these signs.Yes it is saprolegnia or cotton wool disease as it is known also.It occurs when the fish has its slime removed from the body which is its protection,like we have skin,also any lesion or scales or damage to the body can result in it.Nothing to do with water quality,it is the bacteria which is present in ALL freshwater in the uk which latches onto the fish where it is damaged and reproduces and fluffs up causing the whiteness which eats into the flesh,causes stress to it and it over time stops eating and becomes thin and as the air bladders get damaged they end up swimming on the top of the water totally uninterested in anything and then die and end of it then.
The damage is most commonly related to bad catch and release practice and fish being released should not in my opinion be removed from the water and done properly should have no need to be touched by human hand and most of all BARBLESS HOOKS.

Funny though you say that in your previous posts on your visit where you fished and that you would be back to fish them again so it couldnt have put you off them.

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Kevin

As moray said, it takes the slime off, which then allows bacteria in. This can also be caused by lice, i think, if the lice infestation is bad enough. As for handling it's an old problem that will probably never be sorted properly. The 'they're only stockies' attitude just makes things worse. It's funny because if people took more care of these 'only stockies' they wouldn't have to be stocked as much, which would surely make things cheaper and improve the fishing.
And i really see no excuse for fishing barbed when catch and release fishing. If you play a fish properly a barbless hook is just as good as a barbed hook anyway.