Fish Feel Pain

Robert Daly. Getty Images.

A long, long time ago (whenever fishing became a recreational thing), a father took his young son out on the boat for the first time. The kid hated it. He thought fishing sucked shit. His stupid dad had the audacity to drag him out of bed on a Saturday morning at the ungodly hour of 5am, because "that's when the fish are biting", only for them to sit bored in the middle of a man-made "lake" on a dumb fucking boat for 4 hours without getting so much as a nibble.

But a few weeks later, after much coercing, the father convinced his son to give fishing another chance. Some of his dad's fondest childhood memories were from days spent on the lake fishing with his father. If he isn't able to pass that tradition down to his son, he's literally going to kill himself. Thankfully, this time around, they had better luck. The kid got a bite almost instantly. Dad even managed to talk his son through the process of reeling it in all on his own. The kid was fired up to have caught his first fish. The dad was fired up that his son wasn't gay. It was a beautiful moment.

However, when the kid got a closer look at his fish struggling in the boat, he started to feel bad. The poor little guy was flopping around like mad. Gasping for water with a ol' big hook pierced clean through the side of his face. The dad could see the concern on his son's face. "Maybe I jumped the gun on the not gay celebration", he thought to himself.

That's when the dad remembered the valuable lesson his father taught him back when he was a child. He turned to his fish-empathizing son and assured him, “Don’t worry, son. Fish don’t feel pain like humans do.”

Then he ripped the barbed hook back through the fish’s cheek, threw it back into the lake, and explained to his son how they're better people than those who eat the fish, because by releasing them back into the lake, they're can be caught and enjoyed by other fisherman in the future.

“See you tomorrow friend.”

The rest is history. Never again did the boy feel guilt for catching a fish. And that sentiment was passed down from father to son, fisherman to fisherman, for the rest of time. 

As late as 2013, men of science were still publishing scholarly articles based on their own personal research, assuring us that fish do not feel pain “the way humans do”

Science Daily – Fish do not feel pain the way humans do, according to a team of neurobiologists, behavioral ecologists and fishery scientists. The researchers conclude that fish do not have the neuro-physiological capacity for a conscious awareness of pain.

In hindsight, saying that fish "don't feel pain the way humans do" is kind of a hilarious qualifier. It sounds great when you read it, but that could mean anything. Only humans experience pain the way humans do. Only humans cry. You could apply that statement to any animal. But who cares. If the men of science say that fish do not have the neuro-physiological capacity for a conscious awareness of pain, that's good enough for me.

But in recent years, some ass holes just had to come along and rain on everyone's guilt-free fishing parade, and "prove with science" that fish do in fact suffer excruciating pain when they are hooked through the mouth and yanked from the water.

Earth.com – The researchers divided the trout’s suffering into four time segments. These range from alarm at removal to the final depression of brain activity before unconsciousness. 

Through behavioral, neurological, and pharmacological evidence, the team estimated that the average trout endures about ten minutes of pain that qualifies as hurtful, disabling, or excruciating. 

In some conditions, this could stretch beyond 20 minutes. When adjusted by weight, that translates to 24 minutes of such pain per kilogram (about 11 minutes per pound) of fish killed.

The team used neurophysiological data like EEG signals and reflex loss to identify unconsciousness. They reviewed how fish respond to CO₂, pH imbalance, muscle exhaustion, and fear-inducing stimuli. Each pain level had specific criteria, ranging from annoyance to total disruption of basic functions.

Sentient – Multiple studies have demonstrated that fish both possess the anatomy necessary to produce pain and exhibit all of the standard biological responses to noxious stimuli that we would expect if they could feel pain. And if fish can feel pain, that means the fishing industry is inflicting mass suffering on an almost inconceivable scale.

Meaning when a man catches a Tinder profile worthy fish, the picture most women interpret like this…

Is in reality, a little more like this…

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Fishing has been such a great American pastime for so long, that nobody wanted to do anything to poo-poo it. We were all perfectly content with the knowledge that fish were simply too dumb to really feel any pain. But the fish sympathizers couldn't help but come along and remind us that fish are living creatures who might not thoroughly enjoy being abducted from their homes and mouth raped by hooks and fingers while gagging on air for 5-10 minutes at a time once every couple of weeks. Next thing we know they're going to be telling us sharks feel shame too. 

But I mean… they're still just fish. I'm not blogging about fish pain to try and make people feel bad about fishing or anything. A few hours of enjoyment for the objectively superior human race is far more important than allowing a largemouth bass to exist in a torture-free world. But it does make me laugh how for so long everyone was perfectly content living under the assumption that fish don't feel pain, when in reality, the fish we've been stocking our ponds with to catch and release repeatedly every weekend have been living in hell. Just swimming around their tiny home every day, never knowing when their next bite food may rip through their cheek and pull them up to surface to be air-boarded by some behemoth in a Mississippi State quarter-zip.