Bits & Pieces: Fishing Fitness and Doing the Dew

Fish Health Afield: Don’t Do the Dew to Stop Gill Bleeding

I first heard of tournament anglers pouring Mountain Dew over the gills of bass to stop bleeding about 30 years ago. The trick of pouring carbonated beverages into the mouth or over the gills has also been adopted by pike and muskie anglers. This procedure has been adopted and championed by muskie guide John Anderson, who enlisted Dr. Steven Cooke at Carleton University, Ottawa, and facilitated funding to test the potential benefits.

The study by fishery scientists in Cooke’s lab and at the University of Manitoba and University of Massachusetts and published in 2021 in North American Journal of Fisheries Management concluded there was no benefit to the use of carbonated beverages to stop bleeding.*

The experiment was simple. Northern pike were captured by angling when water temperature was 52°F to 64°F. Those not injured or bleeding were retained for experimental testing. A small 3/8-inch-long piece of one gill arch and attached gill filaments was removed. The now-injured and bleeding fish were then subjected to one of four treatments: held in lake water (control); or carbonated lake water, Coca Cola, or Mountain Dew was poured over the wound. The time to stop bleeding did not differ among the treatments. Indeed, the average time to stop bleeding—193 seconds—was almost identical among the treatments. The study tested 118 pike, a sufficient number to achieve reliable results.

So, carbonated lake water or beverages don’t help stop bleeding. But they don’t hurt either, right? Well maybe or maybe not. The contemporary knowledge of how fish gills work is still insufficient to draw a solid conclusion. But here’s what is known. The elevated carbon dioxide (the source of carbonation), which can be detected by the gills, can cause constriction of blood vessels and bradycardia (slowing of heart rate) that would transiently reduce bleeding. Holding the fish out of water to pour the beverage over the gills, which reduces oxygen uptake, also triggers bradycardia. But tissue damage also stimulates blood coagulation, and the acidity of the carbonated water or beverage can cause gill tissue damage. The high carbon dioxide in the soda also can infuse into the blood and cause cascading physiological adjustments.

Bottom line: immersion of pike, and probably other gamefish, in lake water stops bleeding just as fast as those doused with soda and eliminates additional and potentially harmful handling and treatments.

The ultimate arbiter of any fish-handling procedure is whether the fish survives to reproduce and be caught again. This well done study, like most other fish-handling studies, did not monitor long-term survival. Thus, the mortality due to injured and bleeding gills remains unknown. 

–Dr. Hal Schramm

*Trahan, A. T., A. D. Chhor, M. J. Lawrence, J. W. Brownscombe, D. M. Glassman, C. H. Reid, A. E. . Abrams, A. J. Danylchuk, and S. J. Cooke. 2020. Do carbonated beverages reduce bleeding from gill injuries in angled northern pike? N. Am. J. Fish. Mgmt. In press.

Fishing Fitness: Improve Wrist Strength and Mobility

Fishing requires strong fingers and wrists. Scott Hotaling, certified personal trainer, recommends here some exercises you can do in just minutes to improve your wrist strength and mobility for those long fishing weekends we work so hard for. If you feel pain during any of these exercises, stop immediately. For more, visit Scott Hotaling’s Training Basically channel on YouTube or his website at trainingbasically.com.

Wrist Extensor and Flexor Stretch: This stretch helps to maintain and improve the mobility in your wrist.

• Raise your arm in front of you, palm down, with your elbow bent at about 90 degrees.
• Bend your hand and fingers up at about 90 degrees or as far as you can comfortably without pain.
• Press against your hand and fingers with your other hand until you feel a nice stretch.
• You can also press your hand against a wall in front of you, lowering your arm until you feel the same stretch.
• Hold for 30 seconds or longer if you feel relief.
• To stretch your wrist extensors, lower your hand and point your fingers down. Press with your opposite hand.

• If using a wall, press your hand against the wall and raise your arm up to feel the desired stretch.

Ball Squeeze: This exercise also helps strengthen your fingers and improves your grip strength, so you’ll never lose that bucking fish again!

• Grab a small ball, the size of a tennis ball, in the palm of your hand.
• Squeeze the ball. Focus on squeezing with each finger.
• You can also use a towel, water bottle, or other object you can fit comfortably in your hand.
• Hold the squeeze for several seconds or practice releasing and squeezing several times quickly for an increased challenge.

Make a Fist: You’ll be surprised at how challenging you can make this exercise.

• Extend your fingers out and away from each other.
• Bring your fingers together and make a fist.
• To make this a real test, go as fast as possible.
• Don’t cheat! Extend your fingers out as far as they can go before you curl your hand into a fist.
• Make a strong, solid fist as if you were squeezing your fingers with your hand.

Thumb Touches: This simple movement helps improve your dexterity while also improving the strength in your fingers and wrists.

• Touch your thumb with your index finger.
• Repeat with each finger.
• Be precise. Touch each finger in the center. This is the key to improving your dexterity.
• Go as fast as you can while being able to maintain your precision. Feel the burn!

Wrist Climbers: All you need for this exercise is a cylindrical shaped object like a water bottle or dumbbell. You can even make use of that empty paper towel roll you were going to toss out. Why not reuse it for an inexpensive but effective piece of home workout equipment?

• Hold the object at each end with your hands, palm down.
• Rotate the object up and then down.
• Change your hand position to a neutral grip, palms facing each other as if you were shaking someone’s hand, and rotate the object in both directions.
• Attach a dumbbell or similar weight with a string for an added challenge.

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