Fish can not feel pain.

[MuskieBait]

(08-23-2013 12:37 PM)ST_ShoreFisher Wrote:  some pretty crazy 'theories' posted (cold-blooded animals cannot feel pain, eating spiking things means they feel no pain).

it's obvious that fish do not like being hooked. whether anyone wants to classify that as pain like humans feel or discomfort, the bottom line is that there's some suffering happening. this is necessary for long-term survival of a species such as fish.

i fish myself, but do not delude myself with things like 'fish feel no pain'.

Eating things with spines does not necessarily means they do not feel pain...it just means their pain tolerance and their pain perception is different from ours...

It's like the difference between the bottom of your feet vs. your lips. The bottom of your feet has thicker skin layers and can tolerate heat and sharper objects much better than your lips.

Some areas of skin also have less neurons and pain receptors than others, so the reception and signaling of pain is much different than other more sensitive areas. Some people can put a needle through the first layer of their epidermis, but they can't do that for their lips.

What I'm saying is that lip hooking a fish is different from lip hooking a person...as such, you can't assume it will register the same pain perception. Again, adaption and specialization of different part of the body by different animals allow them to do different things, and the pain perception cannot be generalized and assumed.

Like I said before...I've hooked fish 2 or 3 times on the same day before, even catching the same Rockbass 3 times on 5 consecutive casts! When a fish bites a bait, gets hooked, gets released, and then comes back to bite again, you have to question how much pain and that memory of pain the fish actually registered. If you shoot yourself in the leg, would you do it again so soon after?

Ever been icefishing and have a fish takes 2 or 3 baited lines at the same time? If a fish feels pain after getting hooked on the first line, what makes it take the second line when it should be running away from the painful experience? I'm not making any of this stuff up...I'm speaking from real experience. I've had pike took two lines, I've had lake trout took two lines.

I've had fish hooked, got off them hook, then the fish came back and took the same lure/bait again to be hooked a second time...Would you hook yourself in the lips once, pull the hook out, and then do it again?