Quest Baits Blog

Hi Gert,
Only a personal point of view but the sackig of carp isone of my pet hates and as such is something that i have not done for a few years now.
I am sure we have all heard stories from fisheries where carp have suffered or have perished through being put into sacks.
I can relate a couple of personal happenings that have formed my own opinions on the subject.
1. Whilst fishing a water quite a few years ago i can recall a mirror carp somehow escaping from an anglers sack (it became known as Houdini) in the night and him not even knowing till it became light. This got me thinking, if this could have happened without him knowing then so could anything else. Also he never actually got a photo of the fish. If he had taken some self take photo’s straight away this would not have been the case.
2. I can recall riding down to one of my local syndicate waters a few seasons ago on a roasting hot day and seeing an angler fishing with a carp sacked up in the margins. He was waiting for a mate to come and photograph it for him. Anyway his mate duly arrived to do the photo’s. The angler in question waded out to the sack which obviously caused the carp to thrash about and has this was happening the tethering device snapped and the sack became free. It was lucky the angler had time to grab the sack and carp or else this fish would probably have died in that sack later on. Also to make matters worse it transpired that this fish had been sacked up for four hours in temperatures in the high 80’s.

To my mind you are far better off getting used to taking your own self take photo’s rather than sacking a fish, and with the increasing amount of venues now banning sacks it is something more and more anglers are having to do.

There are some excellent articles on self take photography, including some on this blog site if you look at the older entries.

This time of year and through the winter we see a lot of anglers sacking fish through the long hours of darkness just so they can get a trophy shot in the daylight. OK the photo’s look better in the daylight but is it worth risking a carp being sacked for say 12 hours just to get a trophy shot (not to mention how much more livelier and more risk to handling damage they will be). With a camera such has i have got (a CANON POWERSHOT A630) and its many features photographing fish in the dark with the aid of a bulb release is a piece of cake. You just make sure everything is set up in advance and yo have your scales and mats etc in the correct position. Then when you catch your carp leave it in your landing net whilst everything is given a quick check. When you know everything is ok lift the carp from the water and everything can be done in minutes and the carp can be returned none the worse for ware.

We all go on about carp care (unhooking mats, antiseptics etc), and rightly so. Why then risk all this good care by sacking a fish for hours just to get a trophy shot.

Cheers,
Pat

Thanks Pat and Shaun for the reply. Before i read your comments today i decided against the sacking of fish. I definitely aggree with your comments on the sacking of fish and will subsequently not be buying a carp sack. One question thou Pat i also bought a cannon digital camera a month ago and a tripod, would i be able to buy the buld release from cannon too.

Thanks again for the reply.
Greetings Gert