Gut (fishing)

“ When the twine that holds your two-piece Rod together has been thoroughly wet, then when dry, and before using it again, wax well. If any portion of a Rod of three or more pieces is so fast at the joints that you cannot draw, then hold over the flame of a candle or by the fire, and then try, the result is generally satisfactory. Let your gut soften in the water before you commence fishing. Examine old stintings of gut and hair to see there are no flaws by wear and tear, if there are, repair, or discard altogether, carelessness in such matters always brings disappointment in the long run. ”

“ In fishing with shrimp—and it is a good bait all the season through, and must be tried when others fail—use a float fastened about three feet above a swivel sinker, to the lower swivel of which are to be attached two distinct gut leaders, one of three feet, the other of two. Single gut, if large, round, and true, is decidedly preferable to double, and the hook should never be a coarse, clumsy Limerick, which has such an undeserved reputation, but a delicate Carlisle, with a broad, round bend. If very large fish are expected—and they rarely are—use No. ”

“ The convex side of the gills is furnished with fringed fleshy fibres, of a strong red colour when the fish is healthy; the concave side, which is next the mouth, is furnished with long serrated spines. The heart is placed in a cavity near the gills, above the stomach; it is three sided, and consists of a single auricle and ventricle. The œsophagus, or gullet, is remarkably short in proportion to the size of the fish; the stomach is thin, membranous, and capable of great distension. The gut is of uniform size throughout. The gall bladder is small, and of a dark-green colour ”

“ On the whole, we are convinced from experience, that salt-water fish are lighter and more wholesome, and that among these, what are commonly called white fish, are the most easy of digestion. Such as are fed in muddy ponds, or other stagnant waters, are, of all aquatic animals, the least conducive to health.—With respect to the most proper method of curing and dressing fish, there can be no doubt that such as are dried in the open air, and afterwards quickly boiled, afford the most salubrious nutriment. ”

“ Those that are the whitest and most flaky when cooked, as cod, flounders, haddock, hake, soles, turbot, whiting, &c., are the most easily digested; and those abounding in oily matter, as eels, herrings, mackerel, salmon, &c., are most nutritious, though the most likely to offend the stomach. Salt-water fish have been said to be more wholesome than river fish, but without sufficient reason. Salted fish are hard of digestion, unless when carefully cooked and well masticated. Skin diseases are said to be more common among those who live continually on fish than among those who abstain from it ”

“ Of the more nutritive species of fish, turbot, cod, whiting, haddock, flounder, and sole, are the least heating. Of these, the cod is the least easy of digestion, though turbot is quite as difficult of digestion when much lobster sauce is taken with it. The crimping of cod facilitates the digesting of the fish. Sole and whiting are easily digested. Salmon is nutritive, but it is oily, heating, and not very digestible; far less so than salmon trout. The favourite parts of most of these fish [Pg 149] are the least fit for weak stomachs, and the most trying to strong ones. ”

“ If now from any impulse a fish suddenly rises to the surface, the pressure being removed, the air forcibly expands, and not being able to find any outlet, the membranous bladder becomes greatly distended, sometimes to such a degree that it is forced out at the mouth of the fish, dragging the stomach, turned inside out, with it. In this sad condition, unable to sink, the poor fish floats a few days on the surface, dragging out a miserable existence, until death puts a period to its sufferings. ”

“ It is easily digested, and makes strong muscular flesh, but does not greatly increase the quantity of fat in the body. The red blooded and oily kinds, such as salmon, sturgeon, eels and herring, are much more nutritious than the white blooded varieties, such as cod, haddock, and flounders. The salting of rich, oily fish like herring, mackerel, salmon, and sturgeon, does not deprive it of its nutritive elements to the extent that is noticeable with cod; salt cod fish is almost entirely devoid of nutriment, while the first named oily varieties are valuable adjuncts to a vegetable diet. ”

“ The strongest flies are tied with reversed wings, as they will last much longer. Use highest-quality sproat hooks and selected white or mist-colored gut snells. Salmon flies are now often tied on small double hooks, instead of on large ones, as formerly. For salmon flies even more care should be taken in choosing the gut, as not only is the fish larger, but the loss of a salmon is more serious than the loss of a trout. ”

“ Surely, where hundreds of salmon are split in a day, as at the Kettle Falls, it is fair to assume that if they took any food, by chance a fish would be caught immediately after its meal, with enough evidence in the stomach to prove the fact of having broken its fast; but such proof is never discoverable. Digestion would scarcely be more rapid in the rivers than it is in the ocean and estuary, where we know they eat. Open a salmon and examine its stomach at any time, caught either in nets or with hook and line, and food in various stages of digestion will be invariably found. ”

“ But however divided the ancient practitioners were in their estimate of the digestibility of a fish diet, or of particular fishes, in their ichthyic remedies internal or external they credulously and enthusiastically coincided. Hence rained piscine prescriptions in every form, fresh, salt, cooked, calcined: every part and tissue, flesh, bones, skin, trail, brains, gills, viscera, and teeth—each and all were regarded as specifics against some human disease or infirmity. ”

“ Our tapered gut cast has been wetted, and a tiny-eyed fly is at the end. The gut nearest the hook is as fine as gut can possibly be. Anything thicker would be detected, for a spring joins the river at this point and makes the water rather clear. Higher up we need not be so particular. There is a fish rising fifteen yards above us ”

“ In other fish, with flesh more or less white, there is much fat in the tissues. Herrings, pilchards, sprats, eels, lampreys, mackerel are rich, and likely to disagree with delicate persons. However, they are nourishing, and supplying, as they do, both fat and flavour at a small cost, are very largely consumed by the poor. Herring is said to contain more nourishment and is cheaper than any other kind of fish food.
Crimping is employed to increase the firmness of the flesh by contraction of the muscles, in the case of cod, skate, salmon, and some other species. ”

“ The food of the sunfish is made up of worms, insects, and little fishes. To seize these it uses its mouth and teeth. To digest them it needs its alimentary canal, made of the stomach with its glands and intestines. If we cut the fish open, we shall find the stomach with its pyloric cæca, near it the large liver with its gall-bladder, and on the other side the smaller spleen. After the food is dissolved in the stomach and intestines the nutritious part is taken up by the walls of the alimentary canal, whence it passes into the blood. ”

“ But fish, it must be recollected, is less stimulating and satisfying than the flesh of birds and mammals. If wholly denied butcher’s meat and restricted to white fish, the subjects soon tire of it. It is best to prescribe fish for one meal, say lunch, and in addition one type of meat for dinner. Also it is important even in white fish to choose those most easy of digestion, viz., sole, whiting, or flounder, in preference to cod and haddock. ”

“ It is not often, however, that sprats are found inside the mackerel; as that fish, like the salmon, immediately it finds itself in danger of being caught, disgorges the entire contents of its stomach. The river-perch has the same habit of disgorging; and of all fish, I think the trout and cod are oftenest found to contain a great variety of food. Both cod and trout in the death-agony will throw up the greater portion of the food in their stomachs, but the salmon and perch will do so as soon as they feel the hook. ”

“ In fish like the cod, where the fatty matter accumulates, specially in the liver, this organ presents a most striking difference in volume and condition before and after spawning; whilst in such fish as the salmon, herring, etc., where the fat is dispersed amongst the flesh, it is the body which affords the chief evidence of change. As salmon enters the rivers from the sea for the purpose of depositing its spawn, it is plump and well provided with fat. ”

“ As the fish passes from the matie to the full condition, the milt and roe begin to grow at the expense of the nutriment thus stored up; and, as these organs become larger and occupy more and more space in the abdominal cavity, the excess of nutritious substance is transferred to them. The fatty deposit about the intestine and pyloric cæca gradually disappears and the flesh becomes poorer. It would appear that by degrees the fish cease to feed at all. At any rate, there is usually no food in the stomach of a herring which approaches maturity. ”

“ Even in streams where a successful deposition of the ova has been accomplished, there never appears, as far as my observations have gone, any disposition in the parent-fish to return to the sea. Their instinct still prompts them to keep swimming up-stream, until you often find them with their noses worn quite off, their heads bruised and battered, fins and tail ragged and torn, bodies emaciated, thin, and flabby; the bright silvery tints dull and leaden in hue, a livid red streak extending along each side from head to tail, in which large ulcerous sores have eaten into the very vitals. ”

“ Some of the richer and more solid fishes, like salmon, halibut, and mackerel, contain, in addition to their protein, considerable amounts of fat and, when dried or cured, give a rather high fuel value at moderate cost. But the peculiar flavor of fish, its large percentage of water, and the special make-up of its protein, give it a very low food value, and render it, on the whole, undesirable as a permanent staple food. ”

“ Nor are fishmongers less crafty and dishonest than the other dealers in the necessaries of life. Sea-fish, particularly cod, haddock, and whiting, are subject to the operation of inflating the cellular membrane, in order to make them look plump, and increase the bulk of the fish. The imposition is detected by pressing each side of the orifice at the belly of the fish between the thumb and finger, when the air will be perceived to escape. ”

“ N.B. Fish is less nutritious than flesh: as a proof, when the trainer of Newmarket wishes to waste a jockey, he is not allowed meat, nor even pudding, if fish can be had. The white kinds of fish, turbots, soles, whiting, cod, haddock, flounders, smelts, &c. are less nutritious than the oily, fat fish, such as eels, salmon, herrings, sprats, &c.: the latter, however, are more difficult to digest, and often disturb weak stomachs, so that they are obliged to call in the assistance of Cayenne, Cognac, &c. ”

“ The distribution of fat is also different in different species of fish. Some fishes, such as herring, salmon, and alewives, contain fat well distributed throughout the body tissues. In others, such as cod and haddock, the fat is localized in some particular part of the body, as in the species mentioned the oil is contained in the lever, the flesh being almost entirely destitute of oil. For reasons that will be set forth later fat fish must not be exposed to the air because of untoward changes that air causes in the fat; but no harm is done to the protein constituents. ”

“ He says that roasted fishes are most nutritious, but are of difficult evacuation; that the boiled are less nutritious, but are readily evacuated; that sea fishes are savoury, agree with the stomach, are of easy distribution, form proper blood, impart a good colour, and clear the bowels. Such as live in rivers and lakes, he adds, are bad for the stomach, form thick juices, and are of difficult evacuation. ”

“ The fish which afford the most nourishment are the kinds which most resemble meat, as salmon, mackerel, &c.; turbot and halibut, though strictly belonging to the "lighter" order, are very nourishing on account of the amount of meat which they bear in proportion to bone. The whiter kinds of fish are the most easily digestible, as soles or cod, whiting, &c., and some kinds of river fish, notably perch. ”

“ For as they dry their fish within doors, they also gut them there, which, with their bones and fragments, thrown down at meals, and the addition of other sorts of filth, lie every where in heaps, and are, I believe, never carried away till it becomes troublesome, from their size, to walk over them. In a word, their houses are as filthy as hog-sties ”

“ The Principal Organs employed by Fish to accelerate motion are their air-bladder, fins, and tail. The air-bladder, or "sound," is automatically in origin the same as a lung, but it does not perform the function of that organ. Its use is to enable the fish to rise or sink in the water. The air-bladder is a sac or bag filled with gas, chiefly oxygen in the case of sea-fish, and nitrogen in fresh-water species. When a fish wishes to sink, it compresses the muscles of the abdomen and ejects is from the air-bladder, thus increasing the weight of the body. ”

“ When I looked this hungry trout over, he was still bleeding from a fish-hawk’s claws, and his intestines and liver were hanging in the water. Such pain, or injury if you like, as this, does in man utterly destroy appetite and cause inaction. The inference is plain enough: fish cannot be said to suffer what we call pain. I once took a striped bass which had been terribly torn by a gaff. On the whole, Rose, I conclude that, as we go down the scale of life, there is less and less of what we call pain, and at last, probably, only something nearer to discomfort or inconvenience. ”