Bug Sampling

**Halliday** · 12-28-2012, 09:20 AM

Obviously you would pump a stomach to see what the fish is eating. My point is that the fish took your fly. If you don't catch more fish on that fly either move or go down a size.

**whheff** · 12-28-2012, 10:59 AM

My local WCO said that if you don't know the proper way to do this you will probably kill the fish. I am not a big fan of stomach pumps either. There are many books out now that will tell you what bugs are in the streams and what flies to use to catch the fish. Just my 2 cents.

**Halliday** · 12-28-2012, 11:18 AM

That's what I use. A book or website is much easier on a fish!!

**Troutfisher** · 01-24-2013, 09:37 AM

In my opinion, anybody who uses a stomach pump is a belly robber! A trout worked very hard to accumulate the contents of its stomach--bit by bit--and to take the food away, after it expended all that energy gathering it, certainly isn't doing the fish any good. This is especially true when food is scarace and it might not be easily replaced in a timely manner. Then, too, not everyone is gentle enough to use a stomach pump. This requires a special "feel", especially when a fish is struggling. It is not easily used unless the fish is fought to complete exhaustion which lessens its chances of survival after release.

Additionally, the longer to food is in a trout's stomach the harder it is to identify. Stomach acids start breaking it down and it becomes discolored and all mixed together. The secret of stomach-pumping is not to go in too deeply and only sample the food most recently consumed. However, when there's not a lot of food available and the fish hasn't been feeding actively, this is easier said than done.

Like I said in a previous post, our angling literature is full of reference material from masters who have already done all the work for us. Fish those patterns properly and you'll catch plenty of fish without going through all the work of collecting and matching. Keep in mind that hatches often overlap and there are different age classes of nymphs present at the same time. Trout are opportunistic feeders because of this making presentation far more important than pattern. Just about any general nymph pattern will take fish most of the time if it's fished properly.

I'll finish by suggesting that anyone wanting to see full color photos of nymphs go to Troutnut.com. Once again, all the work has already been done for you. Keep in mind that there is often a variation in colors, another arguement for it not being necessary to exactly match colors with BCS color samples, etc.

**ghause** · 01-24-2013, 11:42 AM

All this has me going back to LaFontaine who pointed out that insects (or Caddisflies at least) not only look different when they are alive, but also look different depending on what they happen to be doing.
Even spinners are faded versions of thier more lively counterparts.
Dead bugs don't sparkle.

**Silver Creek** · 01-24-2013, 11:46 AM

Originally Posted by Troutfisher

In my opinion, anybody who uses a stomach pump is a belly robber! A trout worked very hard to accumulate the contents of its stomach--bit by bit--and to take the food away, after it expended all that energy gathering it, certainly isn't doing the fish any good. This is especially true when food is scarace and it might not be easily replaced in a timely manner. Then, too, not everyone is gentle enough to use a stomach pump. This requires a special "feel", especially when a fish is struggling. It is not easily used unless the fish is fought to complete exhaustion which lessens its chances of survival after release.

Additionally, the longer to food is in a trout's stomach the harder it is to identify. Stomach acids start breaking it down and it becomes discolored and all mixed together. The secret of stomach-pumping is not to go in too deeply and only sample the food most recently consumed. However, when there's not a lot of food available and the fish hasn't been feeding actively, this is easier said than done.

Like I said in a previous post, our angling literature is full of reference material from masters who have already done all the work for us. Fish those patterns properly and you'll catch plenty of fish without going through all the work of collecting and matching. Keep in mind that hatches often overlap and there are different age classes of nymphs present at the same time. Trout are opportunistic feeders because of this making presentation far more important than pattern. Just about any general nymph pattern will take fish most of the time if it's fished properly.

I'll finish by suggesting that anyone wanting to see full color photos of nymphs go to Troutnut.com. Once again, all the work has already been done for you. Keep in mind that there is often a variation in colors, another arguement for it not being necessary to exactly match colors with BCS color samples, etc.

A stomach pump is actually a throat pump. Properly used it samples what the fish just consumed.

Secondly, there is no appreciable fatality from the proper use of sampling.

"Strange and Kennedy (1981) assessed the survival of salmonids subjected to stomach flushing and found no difference between stomach-flushed fish and control fish that were held for 3 to 5 nights."

http://tinyurl.com/beyhmmk

In the article above, the goal was to remove stomach contents. The goal of a fly fisher is to remove the throat contents which are the last few items eaten. Throat sampling is less invasive than stomach sampling. Having said that, you do need to do it properly. Most important is to not use the pump on a fish that is too small.

Carl Richards wrote the chapter titled What Trout Eat in the The Complete Guide to Fishing with a Fly Rod published by Fly Fisherman Magazine, ISBN: 0-87165-013-4.

"If fish are feeding underwater, two methods can be used to discover what they are feeding on. The best way is to catch a fish (usually one dummy can be taken using an attractor, fished wet, such as a Coachman) and pump his stomach with a simple stomach pump." From the caption for the pictures, "Above, a stomach designed for trout is an effective way of discovering what the fish are feeding on without harming it."

As a former member of a medical bioethics committee for my hospital, I ask you to reconsider your position.

If your ethical position is that you are against taking some ingested insect because it "robs" the fish of food and energy, you need to examine very closely your ethical basis for this. Ask yourself what hooking a fish and tiring it so that you can bring it hand does to the fish's energy stores.

As I have said many a time on this BB, fishing is a blood sport. Fish die and fish get injured. You can argue about whether sampling is an unethical "advantage" in fly fishing; but to argue that is unethical on the basis of "robbing " energy has no ethical basis when you are doing much worse, if robbing energy is to be the ethical basis of your position.

Consider this proposition. We fly fish because we enjoy the sport. The very reason this BB exists is to make us more effective and better fly fishers. We can read about insects, and we can look at insect web sites; but there is nothing that imprints a fact in memory as seeing it live.

If a fly fisher wants to throat sample to see what the fish just ate, and that is allowable under the fishing regulations; it is ethical in my view. Sometimes there are real surprises. You may find that the fish was feeding on flying ants instead of spinners. Those sipping rises you saw to something in the film was not a spinner fall after all.

How do you think that anglers discovered that fish feed on emergers more often that the duns? It was either thought killing the fish to examine the stomach contents or it was with a throat pump. How can you tell if a fish has fed selectively or opportunistically? You have to kill it or throat sample.

You have the right to set your own rules in fishing. Allow the others to do the same. Some fly fishers feel that nymphing is unethical and obviously you do not. The same ethical principal that allows you to nymph regardless of their ethical beliefs is the same ethical principal that allows those who want to sample with a pump the ethical freedom to do so. In my view, they are no more unethical than you are when you nymph.

So if you don't want to use a throat pump, don't. But research has shown that pumps are not a resource issue nor is it an ethical issue.

**deaddrift** · 01-24-2013, 04:12 PM

TROUTASTIC- Check out BioQuip- BioQuip Products, Inc. Home Page they have tons of stuff. Their collecting nets are well built. Lots of vials etc.

**Silver Creek** · 01-26-2013, 11:05 AM

I think most if not all fly fishers who object to sampling with throat pumps object either on the basis of injuring the fish or on the basis of an unfair advantage.

Sampling does not injure fish when done properly just like a proper release does not injure fish. C&R kills about 4% of fish on average, and we consider that acceptable as long as the resource is preserved. Although it has been shown that the more invasive stomach sampling harms fewer fish than C&R; if we are honest with ourselves, a 4% fatality rate would be acceptable based on our acceptance that rate for C&R.

The unfair advantage criticism is a case of ethical blindness. It is cognitive dissonance at work. We conveniently ignore the fact that other fly fishers consider nymphing to be an unfair advantage based on their angling ethics. And some nymphers consider the use of strike indicators as unethical, and an unfair advantage.

In my view there are only legal and illegal tactics in fly fishing. All other "ethical" consideration are personal ethics and not public ethics. The difference is that public ethics can be used to judge others, whereas, personal ethics are used to judge yourself. Personal ethics should no be used in the public arena.