Pumping Fish

[cdock]

So I've read conflicting articles recently discussing pumping trout's stomach's to see what they are eating. One says it's fine, the fish aren't hurt. The other says, NO NO NO, most fish are harmed or severely hurt and many die. Can't remember the actual source (it was on the net). I tried to find it in my history but so far to no avail. Anyhoo, does this hurt the fish or does it not? If I think about it it's done right they'll be fine if it isn't they'll be hurt. Only makes sense. I've never done this as I don't really see the need as just catching what's drifting and flying about seems to work just fine in order to match the hatch. Is there any advantage to doing this?

[Brownstone]

Ive done it a few times, and really didn;t like doing it, putting a tube down the fishes throat can't be good for it..no matter how careful you are..Ive since given my pump away after packing it for 2 season without using it....

 

..some would even call this cheating...

 

just my 0.02

[Brunsie]

Pumping the fish's stomach would be very hard on them.

What most guys do is pump the throat, which is not hard on them at all, if done properly.

Throat extraction is more often used by lake fisherman and can be advantagious there.

I don't think it's worth the time on the flow.

[OneMoreLastCast]

Brunsie is correct. You do not pump the stomach, you pump the throat of the fish. If you pumped the stomach, the fish would die.

 

I do it all the time and have never felt it hurts the fish what so ever if done correctly.

 

It is done when the fish is in the water and 90% of the insects sampled are still alive, and the other 10% have recently died. So it shows that you are definitely not going very deep with the pump.

 

I wouldn't recommend doing it without someone that knows how showing you, or at least watch a video or read some good instruction on how to do it.

 

I do it mostly on lakes, but will also do it on a river now and then.

 

I will also never pump a fish that I don't think can handle it, or when the conditions might be hard on the fish...ie-warm temperatures, Stressed fish, smaller or bigger fish. I use the slot size rule. I try to take samples from nice healthy 16" or so fish because they seem to handle it the best.

 

It might be considered cheating by some, but I believe in using advantages available. Most of the techniques, materials, etc. would be considered cheating by some of the old timers if you asked them.

[TimD]

I think of it this way,

 

If I am fishing just catch a fish and then pump it, all I find out is what that particular fish is eating. I also know that no matter what is in their throat, they took the fly I was using to catch the fish. So from that one fish I either learn that it took my fly because it was a great imitation of what was in the water or that the fish bit it because it looked good to them. Either way I have just caught a fish with a particular fly and I am not going to change flies from one that works to one that may or may not work. (The exception here being those situations when it is really slow and nothing has been working except the fly that I just caught this fish on.)

 

Statistically speaking, and I can speak this way because I have a strong background in statistics, one fish is not a sample of what all fish are taking - it is a sample of one fish and small samples lead to a very high variance in extending the sample to apply to what the typical fish is eating. In other words, one cannot apply a sample of one fish to make a general rule about all the fish. What happens if the fish just caught has a vision defect, or a predisposition to a particular type of food, or is just feeding opportunistically? The sample size needs to be like 30 fish in order for the actual samples to have a reliable meaning. If I caught 30 fish on the same fly - I may not want to change flies.

 

In short, pumping fish is ok because it helps anglers learn about what fish have been eating. Anglers will also learn about how many things that fish eat that are impossible to imitate (I have seen lots of fish pumped with size 30 chironomid larvae in their throat) but still have taken the angler's fly that did not imitate anything it the fish's throat.

 

Some people swear by it and some people have swore off it, it seems to work either way. I think my time on the water is better spent fishing than pumping but others would not leave home without the baster.

 

Cheers,

 

Tim

[OneMoreLastCast]

Statistically speaking, and I can speak this way because I have a strong background in statistics, one fish is not a sample of what all fish are taking - it is a sample of one fish and small samples lead to a very high variance in extending the sample to apply to what the typical fish is eating. In other words, one cannot apply a sample of one fish to make a general rule about all the fish. What happens if the fish just caught has a vision defect, or a predisposition to a particular type of food, or is just feeding opportunistically? The sample size needs to be like 30 fish in order for the actual samples to have a reliable meaning. If I caught 30 fish on the same fly - I may not want to change flies.

No offense, but this is one of the strangest ideas I've seen applied to a fish's feeding habits.

If I pump a fish's throat and find 15 dark Chironomids, 1 scud and 1 Damsel fly, I can be pretty sure that it would be a pretty good idea to tie on a Chironomid pattern to imitate what most, if not all of the fish are feeding on.

 

Insects hatch in cycles, usually at different times of the day, week, month or year, so if the insects that are hatching happen to be BWO's, I'm pretty sure if you pumped any of the fish you might catch, regardless of the imitation you used to catch it, you would end up with a vile of BWO's.

 

I will say that some people pump fish in order to study the feeding habits of the fish, not purely to "Cheat" and see exactly what the fish are feeding on. This is coming from a person that will change a pattern that is working, in order to find others that work.

 

I either pump fish when I want to back up something that I have theorized, or when the fishing is slow and I am with someone that I really want to get into some fish.

 

Your theory is backwards I believe though. If you pump One fish's stomach and find it full of a particular insect, you will likely find 30 more that are the same and only one that might have decided to feed on something else. Thus, the term "School" of fish.

[lonefisher]

Yeah..... I think this can be superhelpful as it lets you tune into a hatch thats is not yet visible and tells you that the fish have keyed in on the hatch as well. You might net 15 defferent species with a seine net (sp) but if a fish is only eating one type of insect either because they have started their accension, or they are the prefered food or ect ect then a throat pump can be very helpful.......

[TimD]

Your theory is backwards I believe though. If you pump One fish's stomach and find it full of a particular insect, you will likely find 30 more that are the same and only one that might have decided to feed on something else. Thus, the term "School" of fish.

 

Well not too backwards. All I was saying is that whatever fly you caught the fish on actually works so it is a good fly. If you found 5 red, 6 green and 4 black chironomids when catching a fish using a chromie - it is pretty clear that the chromie works. How about the example when you get 15 of the same chironomid and then change to that size and colour - now instead of a fly that stands out, it is just another bug that blends with the rest and some times there can be thousands of the same type in a cubic foot of water. People are always coming up with 'near perfect' imitations of bugs, but the flies that catch fish time in over time are the ones that are more suggestive that imitative.

 

Making hasty generalizations on one sample may or may not work because there is no guarantee that the sample is representative of the population. The only thing that you know for sure is that the fly you caught the fish on actually works. The farthest I would go is to add a fly to the cast with the one that just caught the fish and see what works better.

 

 

Regards,

 

Tim

[OneMoreLastCast]

Well not too backwards. All I was saying is that whatever fly you caught the fish on actually works so it is a good fly.

 

This goes without saying, and don't ge tme wrong, I don't mean to offend or be rude. So please don't take this wrong.

You can't pump a fish if you haven't caught a fish right?

 

If you found 5 red, 6 green and 4 black chironomids when catching a fish using a chromie - it is pretty clear that the chromie works. How about the example when you get 15 of the same chironomid and then change to that size and colour - now instead of a fly that stands out, it is just another bug that blends with the rest and some times there can be thousands of the same type in a cubic foot of water. People are always coming up with 'near perfect' imitations of bugs, but the flies that catch fish time in over time are the ones that are more suggestive that imitative.

 

Making hasty generalizations on one sample may or may not work because there is no guarantee that the sample is representative of the population. The only thing that you know for sure is that the fly you caught the fish on actually works. The farthest I would go is to add a fly to the cast with the one that just caught the fish and see what works better.

 

When you pump a fish's throat, as you said, you already have an idea of what they are feeding on and are either hoping to back it up, see what else they are eating, see what stage of emergence the fish are taking the insect, etc.

I won't go into how fish feed on Chironomids, but trust me, you want to be as close as possible to the actual insect.

 

I agree that there are times when you would want to use a variation of the exact insect that fish are feeding on, ie-murky water you might want to use a larger, darker imitation. But for the most part, the idea of "Matching the Hatch" is to imitate as close as possible what the fish are feeding on.

 

Fish are very habitual creatures that will refuse an imitation for the slightest difference from what they are expecting. This is why you would want your imitation to be as close as possible to the actual insect.

 

I, along with others I've fished with on this board, spend as much time studying the insects in the water as I do fishing. If not more time.

I do it to learn as much as I can not necessarily for that day, but for future days I will spend on the water.

 

Trust me, learn as much as you can about the actual insects the fish feed on and when, rather than the patterns that others are using or patterns that should be working and a person will catch more fish, more consistently.

 

In a river I can turn over rocks, etc. to find the insects where in a lake I can't. This is where a throat pump comes into play.

 

The only time I ever used one on a river is when I catch an abnormally fat fish and want to see what it has been feeding on that the others haven't been, or when I haven't been on the water for awhile and want to give myself or the people with me a little help. Otherwise, I only pump on lakes.

 

Again, don't take offense to this. I like the topic and I am actually surprised it hasn't come up before.

[TimD]

Trust me too I don't mean to offend or be rude. Pumping and drawing conclusions with a small sample can lead to statistical wild goose chases. There are volumes of books written on sampling theory and they all point to more samples are better.

 

I catch hundreds of fish on Chironomids each year, I use about 5 basic patterns: Chromie, Red Butt Chromie, Christmas Chromie, Burgandy Ice Cream Cone and a Black one. To me catch fish on Chironomids is mostly about depth and location, I use the same flies and adjust the other two until I catch fish. A friend of mine pumps fish (once in a while) and it works (sometimes). We catch about the same amount of fish.

 

I teach fly fishing classes in Edmonton and ensure that every one of my students knows that the more they know the bugs, the more fish they will catch. That being said, I also teach them that they can scare up a lot of fish with a #14 Elk Hair Caddis on just about any freestone in Alberta. I also tell them that John Gierach (or A.K. Best or both) have a friend that catches a lot of fish using nothing but Royal Coachmen. So yes knowing the bugs are important (especially in lakes); but just as important is knowing how to read the water, and the value of using proper presentation techniques.

 

Sometimes fish will get persnickety and anglers need an exact imitation, but those times are not as often as people think. I think we often give fish way too much credit trying to out think them. The vast, vast majority of fish feed opportunistically and a good presentation can make those freaky trout seem like suckers.

 

Please don't take offense to this, some people get focused on imitation - and catch fish; while others focus on presentation - and catch fish. It is how well we take care of the resource that really matters.

 

Cheers,

 

Tim

 

 

 

This goes without saying, and don't ge tme wrong, I don't mean to offend or be rude. So please don't take this wrong.

You can't pump a fish if you haven't caught a fish right?

When you pump a fish's throat, as you said, you already have an idea of what they are feeding on and are either hoping to back it up, see what else they are eating, see what stage of emergence the fish are taking the insect, etc.

I won't go into how fish feed on Chironomids, but trust me, you want to be as close as possible to the actual insect.

 

I agree that there are times when you would want to use a variation of the exact insect that fish are feeding on, ie-murky water you might want to use a larger, darker imitation. But for the most part, the idea of "Matching the Hatch" is to imitate as close as possible what the fish are feeding on.

 

Fish are very habitual creatures that will refuse an imitation for the slightest difference from what they are expecting. This is why you would want your imitation to be as close as possible to the actual insect.

 

I, along with others I've fished with on this board, spend as much time studying the insects in the water as I do fishing. If not more time.

I do it to learn as much as I can not necessarily for that day, but for future days I will spend on the water.

 

Trust me, learn as much as you can about the actual insects the fish feed on and when, rather than the patterns that others are using or patterns that should be working and a person will catch more fish, more consistently.

 

In a river I can turn over rocks, etc. to find the insects where in a lake I can't. This is where a throat pump comes into play.

 

The only time I ever used one on a river is when I catch an abnormally fat fish and want to see what it has been feeding on that the others haven't been, or when I haven't been on the water for awhile and want to give myself or the people with me a little help. Otherwise, I only pump on lakes.

 

Again, don't take offense to this. I like the topic and I am actually surprised it hasn't come up before.

[clarki]

if youre pumping a fish then you are pumping their stomach. trout dont have "throats". if the tube of your pump goes into the sphincter in the back of their mouth then you are entering the stomach of the fish. fish swallow food directly into their stomachs.

 

M

[OneMoreLastCast]

When using a pump, your are sampling the very last food a trout has ingested means extracting items from the esophagus or gullet area of the digestive system. The esophagus begins at the back of the throat. It is a short muscular section that expands to take in larger food items. Once the food item passes through the esophagus it enters the stomach where digestive enzymes quickly break down and discolor food items.

 

So you are wrong.

 

To each his own. Use one or don't use one, but this proves that not only are fly fishermen judgemental of anglers that don't fly fish, but of people that fly fish as well.

 

I wish people would do some research before spouting off, or is this another one of your "Stir" things up posts you like to do?

 

I could care less if someone agrees with the use of a pump or not. I have fished with some very reputable fishermen that use them, write about how to use them and use them in their videos and on TV, so if these people that are Biologists, etc. feel okay using them, I do too.

 

Tim expressed his "Opinion" and that is great, but if you are going to start stating facts, know what you're talking about.

[Weedy1]

I wish people would do some research before spouting off, or is this another one of your "Stir" things up posts you like to do?

 

Something along this line perhaps?

 

http://jcs.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/s3-100/50/183.pdf

 

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/202/2/161.pdf

[kungfool]

Your theory is backwards I believe though. If you pump One fish's stomach and find it full of a particular insect, you will likely find 30 more that are the same and only one that might have decided to feed on something else. Thus, the term "School" of fish.

 

I have never pumped a fish... lol pumped a fish... but totally agree with you on this one MTB.

[kungfool]

Please don't take offense to this, some people get focused on imitation - and catch fish; while others focus on presentation - and catch fish. It is how well we take care of the resource that really matters.

 

Wow I totally agree with this too.

[OneMoreLastCast]

Wow I totally agree with this too.

 

That is why boards like these are great.

You get views, opinions and experience from a wide variety of people, and if you come in with an open mind, people might just learn something.

 

BTW K, September looks like a go...I can't wait.

[clarki]

missinthebow... a little bristly dont you think???? you havent proven anything about being judgmental about flyfishermen. I didnt say anything about flyfishermen, seems youre being quite judgmental though. I guess i got under your skin in that other thread. its just fishing so relax.

 

M

[cdock]

Wow this is great. Thanks guys for the great information. Much better than the articles had as this is first hand experience stuff. I don't think I'll start pumping fish (now I get why Kungfool laughed...pumping fish...that sounds so wrong LOL) any time soon. I do just fine without doing that, just wanted to more about it. Thanks again guys.

[OneMoreLastCast]

missinthebow... a little bristly dont you think???? you havent proven anything about being judgmental about flyfishermen. I didnt say anything about flyfishermen, seems youre being quite judgmental though. I guess i got under your skin in that other thread. its just fishing so relax.

 

M

 

I am not sure how I am being judgemental. It started with a question and then a few replies, with mostly opinions on whether or not someone chooses to use a pump or not. There were some posts on different people's mindsets on "Matching the Hatch" or picking a good attractor or imitation, compared to an exact imitation, (which is great to see how other anglers think).

 

Then you step in and state that what you stated, (which was not based on any fact), with nothing to back up your statement.

It was like someone that butts into the middle of a conversation to say what they have to say, whether it has anything to do with the conversation or not.

 

The statement about being judgemental about other fly fishermen is simple. By making a statement like you did, you are coming across as judging a person that might use a pump. Only a Biologist or a Fly Fisherman would use a Pump, so you must be pointing your judgement at other fly fishermen, (or Biologists I guess), that use pumps.

 

I really didn't even pay attention to the other thread. I posted my thoughts, which were directly at people that would let other fishermen that "crowd" them wreck their day. It wasn't in any way directed at the posts that directed someone to tell others to F@*k off, etc.

It's all fine and dandy to have a little fun here, and if you find it fun to do what you did in the other thread, so be it, continue doing it if you like.

 

But that is totally different than coming in and making a statement that has the potential to take the thread in a different direction from the original purpose....and as you can see, it has, but that is my fault.

 

As far as being relaxed. You have no idea how relaxed a person I am, as anyone on this board that knows me can attest to.

 

I am done with this particular discussion. If we can get back to the original idea of the topic, that would be great.

 

No hard feelings.

 

BTW Weedy. Nice reads, thanks.