when shooting a fish....

[201proguide]

i gotta question about when you shoot a fish, and shot placement.


i know there has been lots of talk about shooting the fish in the "sweet spot", and its best to either sever the backbone, or hit the fish in the brain. i also know that when you do hit it in this sweet spot that the fish keels over, and is stoned.

my question is can you sever the fish's spine and not kill it, but paralize the fish so it cant move, but it is still very much alive? i think this happend when i shot a nice size grouper. when the shaft penetrated, the fish instantly keeled over like it was stoned, but it was still alive. when i went to pull out the shaft, it was still alive, but it couldnt move at all. it did not even fight the stringer being shoved thru its eyes, like a fish that was alive usually do.

my guess is that the fish was paralized because the shaft severed the spine, but it was not dead. is this true, or is it when you sever the spine, the fish is dead? im just curious why this happend, and the fish didnt die like i thought it would.

[scrounger]

before i string all my fish if they are not dead i cut the spine, well just stab it so that the fish is paralyzed you are just turning it into a cripple that will die soon when you sever the spine. its head still works because that's above the break in the circuit it just can move and cause problems. thats my thought on the subject.

[Pogie]

What big grouper would that be?

You mean the one I shot?

:D

[fernandezh]

I guess it is possible. Look at Christopher Reeve. His neck was broke and he was paralyzed from the neck down but his heart is still able to beat on its own as well as other "autotomic" body functions. Am I going out on a limb here?

[201proguide]

well not since he was sucking on babies fetuses.

(that was on a south park episode)

[inletsurf]

The difference with humans as with Reeves is that most autonomic functions (breathing, heartbeat, digestion, typically functions that do not require active thought to accomplish, brain stem activity) are served by individual nerves that pass on the outside of the actual spinal cord. Severing the spinal cord could in fact kill someone if it was violent enough to damage the other nerves, but sometimes when these 'outsider' nerves aren't damaged, the person is able to live with the help of breathing assist, etc... Quadripeligics have pretty much a severed spinal cord yet some can still perform basic autonomous human tasks.

Now the real question is, "do fish have that same type of dual-path work" I don't know. If they did, a spear hole is pretty friggin big compared to the size of their spine, and I would imagine that a regular tip would take out much of any surrounding nerve exterior to the spine.

Dammit I missed that South Park episode!!!

[junior]

IMHO, the fish ain't dead till he's buried in ice.

[frogman]

When you sever a fish's spine you do NOT kill the fish. Fish are vertebrates like us and are essentially wired fairly similarly. The autonomic functions (bowel/bladder mobility, heart beating, etc) are only fine tuned by the central nervous system and can function on their own (of course you are going to have to pee or crap in your pants but at least it is working). Respiration is a different story. Only the diaphragm, the muscle that seperates the chest from the abdomen is innervated by a cranial nerve, the vagus (meaning a nerve that comes from the brain not the spine). The other muscles (chest wal muscles) are wired from the thoracic (chest) spinal cord. So, depending on the level of the injury you may or may not need respirator assistance (Reeves with his nifty ventilator).
Sorry to bother you with all the medical mumbo-jumbo but the next time you paralyze/"stone" a fish please do it a favor and "brain" it so that it doesn't thrash around.

[swathdiver]

That's what dives knives are for. They aren't dead after the spine shot. I doubt they're feeling too much either but I brain 'em and bag 'em.

[SpearDiverTampa]

That part of the episode was disgusting!!!

[meekal]

http://www.sphtml.com/

FULL versions of previous South Park episodes; including the Chris Reeves fetus episode.

[f94gator]

Great site!!