soft plastics in fish study info

[YOAdrien]

guys I am NOT trying to start anything here at all. I stumbled across this on the maine site and found it to be interesting information and figured I would share it with those that hadn't seen it.


As many of you know, I am a retired Regional Fisheries Biologist from the Fish and Wildlife Department’s Jonesboro office after 38 years on the job. I was a member of the Fisheries SCUBA Dive team and was the species author and primary investigator for Maine’s smallmouth and largemouth bass for more than 15 years. I am also an avid bass angler. Here’s some information that pertains to the discussion of soft plastic lures.
    Maine Fish and Wildlife issued a press release on 4/27/2009, “strongly urging anglers to protect Maine’s fish by changing from soft plastic lures to biodegradable ones.”
    A wide variety of Maine’s fish species pick up soft plastic lures and swallow them. Maine biologists have found soft plastics in smallmouth and largemouth bass, brook trout, lake trout, brown trout, rainbow trout, splake, and landlocked salmon. It is less commonly seen in the stomachs of bass because of their ability to regurgitate stomach contents, as many anglers have seen while reeling in bass.
    A creel survey on East Grand Lake showed that 10% of lake trout and 20% of brook trout had soft plastic lures in their stomachs. At another lake, one party of anglers reported catching 10 brook trout on one day, and 8 of the 10 had soft plastics in them.
    In many cases of fish stomachs cut open during creel surveys or netting samples, biologists have found as many as 4-11 individual soft plastics, with one additional lake trout with 18 soft plastics, but the “record” is one lake trout weighing about 4 pounds that had 32 soft plastic lures in its stomach! Fish do not digest nor pass soft plastics from their digestive system, so it remains as a digestive tract blockage for the rest of their life, reducing the available space for proper digestion and sometimes causing loss of weight..
    Loons that are found dead in Maine are necropsied at Tufts University. Researcher Mark Holcrist has found 4 or 5 loons that had soft plastic in their stomachs.
    A cooperative study between Maine Fish and Wildlife’s pathologist Dr. Russell Danner, biologist Francis Brautigam, and Unity College’s professor Jim Chacko showed that 65% of brook trout consumed soft plastic lures that were dropped in the water, retaining them for at least 13 weeks when they were necropsied. Soft plastics in fish stomachs can cause ulcers, loss of weight, and anorexia, which was observed in this study. Dr. Danner urged anglers “to voluntarily purchase biodegradable and food-based lures rather than soft plastic ones. Also, we are asking anglers not to discard plastic lures into any waters.”
    Leading companies for biodegradable soft-molded fishing lures are Berkeley, Big Bite Bio Baits, Food Source Lures, Fishbites, Advanced Angling Technology, and others will likely enter the market when states mandate their use. Cost is very similar to traditional soft plastics.
Big Bite Bio Bait used tested this bait against conventional soft plastics, swapping both baits with various anglers. The biodegradable bait won in all cases.  Fish with Bio Bait in the stomach were checked after one week, finding that it was already breaking down
    The U.S. Fish and Wildlife estimates that 20 million pounds of soft plastic is lost and deposited in the water annually.
    People may think this is an attempt to shut down a favorite and effective group of lures they want to use, leaving them with no suitable alternative. This is not the intent. The intent is for Maine to lead the way in the switch to biodegradable soft fishing lures, so we do not further litter the bottom of our lakes with plastic that has a lifespan of more than 200 years and is picked up by fish for many generations, allowing it to create digestive tract blockages in generations of fish for decades to come.
    I’d like to see Maine anglers band together to support the use of biodegradable soft lures and work out any legal and definition problems to permit its use instead of soft plastics for the benefit of the fish from now into the future.

32 pieces of soft plastic from a Maranacook Lake togue


11 pieces of soft plastic from a Mousam Lake togue


3 pieces of soft plastic from a Range Pond brook trout

[Coffin Dodger]

Good info there Adrien.
Seems too easy for those wanting to use plastics, to use the biodegradables.
Thanks for sharing.

[Oddfish]

Thanks for posting!

Oddfish

[H82LUZ]

Thanks for posting. Good read.

[dickbaker]

  Thanks Adrien.   Would it be too much to ask you to post this at the myfishfinder site?    Bass fishermen are beginning their season and the first ever high school bass competition seems to be planned for this year.   

Dick

[YOAdrien]

I'm not a member so I can't post, just copy and paste.

[Surfcaster]

I will be buying new bait this year....I can't stand animals being killed, maybe i should just stop fishing...I mean i never keep anything and generally feel bad for fish when they are hooked bad, so maybe this sport isn't for me....oh right that is why i fly fish now, because i don't catch anything on the fly rod....

[bigredonice]

I will be buying new bait this year....I can't stand animals being killed, maybe i should just stop fishing...I mean i never keep anything and generally feel bad for fish when they are hooked bad, so maybe this sport isn't for me....oh right that is why i fly fish now, because i don't catch anything on the fly rod....

So i take it your a vegan and never use live bait? 

[JRFlatlander]

I'll bite on this one, it's quite here today at work.  I  have fished with plastics for over 20 years now and won't argue that they don't get ingested by fish and cause damage.  My issue is how could 20 millions pounds get put into the water per year.  I don't think its the plastics at all but the people using them. Up intill the senko I don't see how that many baits could get torn off or lost in the water.  Even with the senko, if fished with an O ring you don't loose them often.  If you just put you hook in it and wacky rig it, your going to loose lots of baits.  But with a lizard, worm , spider grub , fluke ect.... do people really get these baits ripped on the hooks and deposited in the water?  I don't think so.  Its the people using them just tossing used baits in the water, same people that toss their butts, beer cans and what ever else in the water or land. What next ban Budweiser because people can't get rid of their cans and bottles properly??

[jibbs]

What about the six miles of lead core line I hook into once a week on Winni...

[DConICE]

I too question the estimate of 20 million pounds per year dumped in the water... and wonder if they are basing that off a % of sales and assume that some amount of the baits being replaced are being lost in the water.  I know in my case I probably buy more plastics than I loose simply because many of them are designed to catch fisherman and not fish... made evident by the sheer amount I own and rarely throw anymore.

I do think buying the biodegradable ones makes sense, and is certainly better for the fishery. I also believe if they make them comparable in price and they are proven to work better as the post says, this will happen on its own over time and won't require more legislation to make it so.

[TogueRogue]

Thanx Adrien! Great read! Not only should they be biodegradable, but wouldn't it be good if they were actually nutritionally beneficial for the fish??...        TR 

[Hardwata]

What about the six miles of lead core line I hook into once a week on Winni...

Its kinda like the corn debate, a lot of the guy's against corn use artificial salmon eggs (which is corn). Im willing to bet a lot of the guy's using lead line are against plastics... Kinda of a double standard.
 and I don't want shift the topic off fish but Winnie is a certain city's drinking water.......

[PMalony115]

Interesting Article! Thanks for sharing!

[bngalloNHVTfish]

Very good article! I agree on the usage of biodegradable lures over the soft plastics ones, my question is what are the biodegradable ones made out of? I'm just wondering from a strictly durability standpoint, like would the lures fall apart after one fish?

[Oddfish]

What about the six miles of lead core line I hook into once a week on Winni...

I would smelt it and make cusk sinkers out of it, recycle and reuse.

Oddfish

[jibbs]

I would smelt it and make cusk sinkers out of it, recycle and reuse.

Oddfish

stuff is endless...i know it doesnt kill fish like senko's do, but it can destroy a boat...atleast once a week i catch this stuff...i understand senko's are a problem, but i can't remember the last time i had a soft plastic come off, but i don't use senkos as much anymore...

[MikeF-NH]

I think this debate pits the bass/warmwater guys against the cold water guys. Its not as simple as banning lead sinkers. Very few soft plastic manufacturers create biogradable product and thus would have to reinvent their product completely to match texture, taste etc and would essentially make soft plastics almost illegal in NH with few exceptions. With no other states requiring this, manufacturers would be slow to react and this would have HUGE impact on NH warm water fisherman. It would have no impact on cold water fishermen (who are loving this idea). I do both so I see both sides of the argument but agree with the warm water guys' counter argument of "if you put your nose in our business and support this, why shouldn't we support banning of lead core line?" - an equally limiting regulation that makes environmental sense.

We all have enough resistance from "outside groups" without going after each other. I find the article compelling enough to reconsider the soft plastics I use BUT like the salmon pledge, I think we should leave this to the individual and out of the courts/legal system.

[Rob M]

Mike F-NH, well said. I am primarily a bass fisherman, until the water hardens, then it is rainbow time for me, but it does bother me to see plastics littering the lake bottoms everywhere. I think the majority of it is from ignorance or indifference. This year NH TBF will be collecting used plastics at all of our Tournaments and be shipping them to a guy down in Florida who melts them down and makes new baits from them, and donates them to different kids groups. I don't think the collection will defeat the problem, but hopefully educating people about it will. I do not want to see the day when a bill is drafted that will restrict what plastics we can use, and pits salmon/trout fisherman against bass fisherman. We are all in this together, and have to work together to educate the ones that don't understand the effect our actions have.

Just my .02

Be safe and tight lines.

[jibbs]

Mike F-NH, well said. I am primarily a bass fisherman, until the water hardens, then it is rainbow time for me, but it does bother me to see plastics littering the lake bottoms everywhere. I think the majority of it is from ignorance or indifference. This year NH TBF will be collecting used plastics at all of our Tournaments and be shipping them to a guy down in Florida who melts them down and makes new baits from them, and donates them to different kids groups. I don't think the collection will defeat the problem, but hopefully educating people about it will. I do not want to see the day when a bill is drafted that will restrict what plastics we can use, and pits salmon/trout fisherman against bass fisherman. We are all in this together, and have to work together to educate the ones that don't understand the effect our actions have.

Just my .02

Be safe and tight lines.

cool program...our club should do the same

[PHD]

Can you imagine if a loon ate a soft plastic...  Then got tangled in all the  leadcore that I dredge up...  Then we would have real problems..  If lead is going to be banned, will that include lead core???   I hope so...

[dennisg34]

Soft Plastics are my life...if Gary Yamamoto's baits aren't biodegradable...well.. .I'm still fishing regardless.