Scales of Injustice

[GreggB]

I got a kick out of this, hope you do to.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has new billboards out that claim fishing is cruel. I totally agree. The last time I went, all I caught was a sunburn, three hooks in the back of my thigh and ##### from my pals for forgetting the Off.
Unfortunately, this is not what PETA means. PETA means fishing is cruel to the fish. Seriously. PETA plans to put up billboards across the U.S. and in Canada that show a Labrador retriever with a hook in his bloody lip. IF YOU WOULDN'T DO IT TO A DOG, the signs say, WHY DO IT TO A FISH?

And, of course, the answer is: Because fish do not bring me my slippers.

Look, I wailed for the whales. I fumed over fur. I emotionally clubbed myself over the baby seals. But I'll be ****ed if I'm going to weep over a walleye.

PETA says fish feel pain and that to snag one with a steel hook, drag it along for 50 yards or so and then haul it out of the water so it suffocates is sick. "Why do we throw a Frisbee to some animals and a barbed hook to others?" PETA asks on its website.

And, of course, the answer is: Because fish really suck at catching Frisbees.

PETA thinks it's evil to eat fish, too. But why should we stop eating them when they eat each other? Besides, they had their chance to evolve. They could've crawled out of the primordial ooze with us, but they didn't. They decided to stay behind and swim in the water they pee in and go around never blinking. When fish lift their scaly butts past us in the food chain, they can eat us. Until then, pass the tartar sauce.

PETA even says catch-and-release is cruel. They say the harm and stress caused by being caught and released is sometimes enough to kill the fish later on. As if the fish go straight into therapy after being caught.

Fish: I'm telling you, Doc, I was just minding my own business when I got hauled into the sky, examined by some weird beings and then thrown back!

Fish psychiatrist: Lemme guess. A UFO, right?

I mean, what's PETA going to do? You'll be sitting at the counter in the deli, and suddenly, the PETA police will come running in, shouting, "All right, back away from the tuna melt and nobody gets hurt!" My God, we're talking about fish here. Fish have a brain the size of a corn kernel.

Professor James Rose, a University of Wyoming neuroscientist, studied fish for years and determined that they lack a neocortex (parts of which process the brain's response to pain), much like Cubs fans. Besides, if fish are so smart, why can you catch a fish, throw it back and then, two hours later, catch the same fish? I mean, do you really want to save something dumber than Robert Downey Jr.?

Didn't Jesus fish? He seemed like a pretty sensitive guy. When He zapped up all those fishes for 5,000 people, what do you think He did with them, throw them back?

I know, I know -- I hate hunting. But sitting in the back of a pickup, taking a rifle with an infrared scope and killing a deer from 1,000 yards away is not nearly the same thing as standing up to your spleen in icy rushing river water, trying to cast the perfectly tied fly into the perfect eddy to catch a rainbow trout. Is it our fault that the trout falls for it? Tell you what: I will get behind hunting when hunters come up with a shoot-and-release program.

Why does PETA stop at fish? Where does PETA stand on the plight of the worm? And plankton? And the 1,000,000 micro-organisms that are crushed by your boots every time you go on a nature hike? Have these PETA vegetarians ever gotten close to a broccoli to hear its screams as it's violently yanked from its birthplace and boiled to death?

Fishing is cruel? I always thought fishing was one of the most peaceful things you could do. What are fathers and sons supposed to do together, knit sweaters out of each other's navel lint? What are we supposed to read, Hemingway's Old Man and the Parking Lot?

I'll tell you one thing. Before I agree to this whole fish-human truce, somebody had better have a long face-to-face with the sharks about it. I say we send a bunch of PETA members down right away

[Hawgeye]

Greggb,

I loved the post on fishing. You had me laughing. I do disagree with you on the hunting issue but did not take offense to it as preaching. I only take it that you calmly are not in favor of hunting, but you do not seem to be an "anti-hunter".

I personally will support the hunter as long as they are ethical in their practices, use good decisions with the taking of their game and don't waste the meat that they get. To hunt for "the kill", in my opinion is ethically wrong unless it is to control the species from overpopulation, protect a property or landowner from losing livestock or crops, or protect it from disease.

Great POST!

[Bayside]

Bravo!! Well said my freind, I enjoyed your post, very well said. Someone needs to put these granola eating, tree hugging, sandal wearing, latte drinking, Volvo driving yuppies in their place.

[skipjack]

well i hunt and fish.as far as p.e.t.a. is concerned we all need to hang together or we will hang seperately!

[Bill]

Petty
Egotistical
Talking
A##holes

[Ethical Fisherman]

I still see people filleting live fish..........Do they feel anything? I think they do and this is prime ground for PETA. Treat your game humanely and you will fish for years to come

[eyefish2]

Wait a minute, back up the bus.

I fish up to 5 walleye tourneys a year, have been fishing for over 20 years and I am by no means a member of PETA. However I do wear sandals while I'm fishing (very comfortable), my wife is looking at buying a used Volvo(safest car made), I love to eat granola while I'm at work and fishing (really like it with rasberries) and I drink lates most mornings (um um um).

PETA people come in all sizes, shapes, and colors. I'm willing to bet 99% of them have never even sat in a Volvo. There will come a time that all fisherman (walleye, bass, trout, saltwater, ect) will need to stand togeather for a common purpose. Some of us will be wearing sandals while others will be in cowboy boots or others in Rockports.

The only thing I know about PETA people is they are all walleye deprived. The have obviously never caught a big walleye or fished hard all day to take home a few keepers to fry up fresh.

Take a child fishing whenever you can, it will stop the insane PETA People disease from spreading.

[bigfish1965]

I fear I would be insulting the mentally challenged if I call the antagonists from PETA a gang of retards, so I will refrain from such. However, no one on earth is more concerned with the well-being of fish and its related environment and eco-systems than the angler. Cruelty takes many forms. I noticed a group of PETA protestors lamenting the whales of marineland, complaining that man has no right to take animals to serve them as slaves. Yet I noticed the most vocal protester had brought along his lovely Labrador Retriever with him. Hmm...okay maybe SOME animals...just not the apparent intelligent ones. While I am not a hunter, there is one undeniable fact. We as humans, have displaced the only natural enemy of larger herbivores in most areas. ( I speak of the wolf) Since it is unlikely that the wolf will come back to its former state, we take the responsibility as the highest creature on the food chain. So I ask PETA, which is more inhumane, the controlled harvest of deer and such, or the rampant disease and starvation of any unchecked species? As far as PETA is concerned, we should all be vegans. However, the agricultural methods needed to supply the world with nothing but vegetables and fruit, would require fertilization programs that would destroy the worlds fresh water resources. We as humans are natural omnivores. Anyone I have ever met that is a vegan, looks like they have not eaten in six months. There are proteins that exist only in meat that are necessary for survival.

[jimbo]

You must remember if you only ate veggies with no good ole red meat or walleye, you'd be goofy too. If these tree huggers would spend as much time helping the enviroment as they do *****ing we'd have a better place to live.

[Charles Manson]

OH GIVE ME A BREAK!!! Do you think clubing a fish over the head a few times or slowly depriving one of oxygen is a more humane way to kill a fish? When my fillet knife cuts into fish behind its gills and it starts bleeding like a stuck pig, there is no faster more humane way to kill it...period!!! Take your PETA ideas down the road, its not welcome here.

[TOOL]

I tell you brother Maynard, I heard a million soles crying out in pain. It was the carrots! Yes! The carrots! Let the Rabbits wear glasses! To you, it may be harvest time. To them, it is the holocaust! This is necesary, this is necesary, this is necesary! Life feeds on life, feeds on life, feeds on life!
Mebee ifn we tells them peta types that veggies feel pain, they'll all starve.

[Ethical Fisherman]

Hey Charles........I see all those years behind bars has not changed your ideas. I see you still like the knife work.
Filleting a live fish is cruel and a terrible thing to do. Why not skin out your game live too...whats the difference.

[Charles Manson]

The bars are goovy man. So how do ethical fishermen clean fish? Peace and love baby!

[Al]

Okay oh wise one, then how do you propose that the fish be "humanely" killed before cleaning it?Bleed them so they die like a man with a slit throat? Some of you take this a bit to far. I'm not for abusing them, but you all forget one thing....they are animals and they are lower on the food chain.Ever see a killer whale attack its prey? They don't stop and figure out the most ethical way to take it......heck they don't even stop and give thanks to the creator for it. Next thing you know, they'll tell you to use dull hooks to give the fish a fighting chance and so their skin won't be punctured.

[Ted bundy]

Your the man...

[FIRETIGER(DR)]

Hey Hawgeye,RESPECTFULY,what part of the article, where the author from Sportsman Castrated, states that"I FUMMED OVER FUR and I HATE HUNTING" didn't you think wasn't PREACHING the peta anti-hunting/fishing and trapping party line, You may not have been offended but I SURE WAS !!!!,It seems that the majority of the posts are the same,to me its like a magician waving his hand in your face to conceal the other hand hiding the coin,the author comes out and tells you how he stands on hunting and some of you people fall for it as long as he leaves fishing alone, And as for the, people forthe "ETHICALFISHERMAN"treatment of animals individual, I rarely respond to unsigned authors,(You guys know who I'am talking about,The I KNOWS and the YEAH BUTTS),, Butt,In your face I'll make an exception,You said that as long as I treat my game HUMANLEY, I can look forward to fishing for a long time to come,,,, First and formost,I would like to comment on your(and PETAs)unfounded habit of attaching human characteristics to a FOOD GROUP!!! The vast majority of sportsPERSONS treat there prey as well as can be expected while at the same time,reducing them to hand, and as you stated "why don't I skin my game animals alive" and I say,they usually have succumed to multiple gun shot wounds and its not really an issue, and while you seem to dis-reguard Mr. Goldens plea to play nice, in a vain attempt to down grade sportman to level of convicted crimmials (charly)your simply revealing your true,mud mixing, slitsifting purpose,Which is the Politic's of division. and finally I WILL HUNT and TRAP and FISH with or without, YOURS or any one else's permission,Skipjack's quote from theFederalist Papers is a good one Hang together or hang seperatly,I like the one,stand for something or fall for everything

[FireTiger(DR)]

The difference is that they won't let me use a 12 gauge on fish!!!

[Suzuki]

I also kill fish before cleaning them.

[Ethical Fisherman]

I rarely kill fish. I let most of them go. Ones that I do decide to keep I kill with a sharp blow to the head with my fish club and then put them on ice......I do not drag them around for hours on end. I feel this is a humane way of killing fish.I do not have a livewell in my boat. I have respect for other living creatures and when I harvest one I do it as humanely as possible. I also hunt and only shoot when I am reasonably secure that my shot is clean. I practice to keep up my skill level.

[David Anderson]

I confess, I also kill my fish before filleting. They don't flop around so much that way. Still like the way the flesh quivers as I cut it though.

[river runner]

LOVE the TOOL analagy, I'M SICK OF SAVE THE DOLPHINS, SAVE THE DOLPHINS, OH YOUR A TUNA GET IN THE BOAT, YOUR A SANDWICH.I think most hunters and fisherman,don't over harvest, and kill there catch/kill humanly. I don't hunt not because I CAN'T,or because I don't believe in killing for food.It's because I've never met a deer or rabbit that pisses me off as much as our political leaders and I LET THEM GO, why not the deer and rabbit. Hey you never know may be the best tasting sandwich going might be a politition and peta member pita. Get reel

[Joshuatreewi]

Hey look at what peta wants to do found this on msn.com

GREEN, R-WIS., WANTS the Agriculture Department to decontaminate Bruce Friedrich of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, because the activist has said foot-and-mouth disease would be a good thing for animals in this country.
Friedrich, PETA's vegan campaign coordinator, made that comment in the same breath that he disclosed he would be going to England this summer — and then coming to the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wis., upon his return.
Green and others took that as a possible threat that Friedrich would try to bring Britain's foot-and-mouth epidemic to the United States.
"Based on his comments, Mr. Friedrich's re-entry to our country must be closely monitored," Green wrote Tuesday in a letter to Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman.
Friedrich, who has called for the expo to be canceled, said he has no intention of trying to bring the disease to the United States.
"Of course not," he said. "PETA works through legal means, with the occasional nonviolent civil disobedience where we take full responsibility."
Friedrich reiterated that the disease would be a welcome development for farm animals because it would cause more people to become vegetarians. By causing animals to be killed on site, he added, the disease would also spare animals "horrendous" trips to the slaughterhouse.
The activist said will be in PETA's London office from July to September to learn more about the disease. The timing, a month before the expo, is coincidental, he said.

Hmm what kind of wackos do peta recuit its like the deer season in ohio that they caught and put blaze orange vests on a couple hundred deer unforunatly a local sports shop offered a $5.00 bounty on the vests and all but a few were shot or the time they released 4000 minks from a farm next to a busy highway guess what happend yep squished minks or they all starved somtimes these groups don't think before they act if the hunting seasons ended waterfowl numbers would drop from perdation caused by lack of large perdators and the snow geese would eat themselves out of a home as they are 3 times in numbers as what there tundra breeding grounds can feed and the tundra takes hundreds of years to repair if damaged lots of fish speicies would go extinct because there numbers are suported by stocking that includes many sturgon species along with paddle fish since the ****s took away their access to spawning grounds. Deer populations would sky rocket out of control and car insurance would be outrageous due to all the deer being hit they would starve in winter and then people would be complaining because there would be deer dieing in there back yards. It would be a real mess not to metion the loss of jobs and tax income for states

[Fish Info AL]

Tell PETA, for every fish you catch, you save the lives of thousands of other fish. Fish are canibals. Got to keep fishing to keep things in balance.

[Fish Info AL]

Tell PETA, for every fish you catch, you save the lives of thousands of other fish. Have to keep fishing to keep things in balance.

[Charles Manson]

How do you know for sure that the fish dies immediately? Do you check its vital signs or do you look into its eyes and see death? All this talk is getting me excited for hunting season.

[Ethical Fisherman]

LOL Chuck.......I've done my share of killing game and fish. I also custom killed cattle and other livestock. I always made sure the job I was paid for was done correctly.

[Charles Manson]

What about the theory that the longer the fish is dead before you clean it the more toxins it releases into its bloodstream which gets on the meat which we eat? Thats not a healthy situation for us carnivores.

[Ethical Fisherman]

Good point Chuck........Between killing and eating for me is usually under three hours. I don't think I'll worry about it. LOL

[MIKE]

Hey hey hey hey!!! I am a member of PETA (people eating tasty animals) and will be for life.

[Olfs]

Great post TOOL! I don't think to many people here got that one.
I had to post and let you know! (p.s. the best band out right now)