Fish Bladder

[amery]

Maybe a dumb question. I've been told that if you bring up a fish from the deep {like we all have}, and the bladder is protruding thru the mouth. That a person can punch a hole in it{bladder} with a needle and the fish will survive when released.Is there any truth to this? Thanks Amery

[Guest]

amery,
yes, i believe it to be true. Me and some buddies tested that theory up on lake winnibigoshish. When you real them up so fast there stomach come through there mouth due to the drastic pressure change(kinda like the benz in a way). This usually happens from about 25'+. We poked that bubble, marked them, and let them go. We then watched through the aqua view and saw many of those fish stayed in the same area and lived for as long as we saw them(majority of the day, from what we saw). They seemed to be just as active as all of the other fish! I would imagine that the bubble finds it's way back inside and heals up pretty quickly, since it's a very small hole.
We were messing around, and that's what we saw. May be accurate, or may not be. Hope it's a help.
Keep-um-jigin'

[This message has been edited by NotinButCetus (edited 01-12-2003).]

[Guest]

I have been told that the the bladder will pull itself back into the fish when it returns to the depths. I normally take it slow with fish in deeper water.

[GullGuide]

Oh geeze guys,
Please don't do that. Fizzing as it is called has been proven not to work, regardless of what you hear. Even well trained biologists have a hard time with this procedure and the way they do it, with a syringe should not even be attempted.
Popping a fishes bladder in the way described, you are almost guaranteeing that fish will die for sure, even if you do seem to watch them swim actively on your cam. Let's not get people out there doing this.

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[Guest]

I agree, that is an uncommon practice. If your fishing deep Perch, reel them up slow if possible.

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[Skeets]

I also agree that popping air bladders is a bad choice. Those fish are almost sure going to die.
Like D-Man said, reel 'em in slower, and it will not happen as often.

[Surface Tension]

Popping air bladders is a no no. Theres also bulging eyes and expanding air molecules in the blood stream.

[Jim W]

Do not go poppin' boys!!!!!!!

Jim W

[amery]

Thanks for all the replies,my buddies and I will take your advice.We got on the topic at work and wanted to know if there was any truth to it. Four of us will be out of McQuoids this weekend will post results.
Thanks again ,,Amery

[icehousebob]

I've noticed that the air bladder bulge is a lot less pronounced in the smaller Perch. On Mille Lacs, in about 25 feet of water the larger fish were bulged by the expanding air but the smaller ones must have a proportionally smaller bladder. I found if I reeled in and released the small ones very quickly, I could watch them zoom back to the bottom on the Vex. Amazing how fast they went. On Devil's Lake, when you get to 35 to 45 feet of water, forget releasing anything. Many times, you would fight the fish for the first 20 feet and reel like heck as they floated up the last half. The air bladders stick all the way out of their mouths.

[Guest]

I agree as well, it is an uncommon practice and should be realed up very slow. It just seemed like the only way to get some of the fish back down the hole. Did this to 3 of them, they weren't going down any other way. We usually are very carefull on how we real them cause it happens quite often. I am no biologist by any means and will take advice from you guys. Hopefully our curiosity didn't kill the 3 perch. Well I guess they would have died either way. Well definately be better sportsman about it next time and let the experts do the studin'. Thanks for all of your imput.