Fishing Is A Cruel Sport

I say this not because we did not have much luck today. We did - caught several, most of which were thrown away, 1 keeper bass, 2 others lost (right at the moment of haul), discovery of one "aquarium" spot - so called because the just dropping the line meant you caught a fish. However the fish we were fishing for - largemouth bass - was unfortunately in short supply.

Why is fishing cruel. Consider how we put the live bait. A bunch of worms, kept in soil and stored in a small cardboard box in a freezer, is our bait. Before casting, a worm is selected and taken out, and cut into pieces (while alive) with a scissor. One of the still wriggling pieces is then attached to a hook (sorry - driven through the hook, impaling the part), before the whole arrangement is submerged into water.

Today we went one step better. Having negligible luck with our worms, we saw what the Oriental anglers next to us were doing. They were using crayfish (a cray fish is a very mini lobster, the size of your little finger). And so we bought a bunch of them (live ofcourse), and then proceeded to do the following:

A crayfish was selected. Its arms (pincers) were then cut/broken/torn off. The tail was then cut/broken. What is left of the now writhing creature is then impaled on the hook, like a stake being driven through its body, entering the soft underbelly and piercing the rigid shell on the other side. Then ofcourse it's thrown into the water to be bitten by a fish that will taken get its lip stuck to the hook and move and cause the hook to pierce through from under the skin and come out impaling the fish through its gills.

As I said, a cruel sport.