Blood Chemistry & Angling Stress

CANADIAN RESEARCHERS STUDY MUSKY STRESS CAUSED BY FISHERMEN

- Jordan Weeks

Much has been said about hot water and angling stress on muskies. A lot of the factual information came from one project, Dr. Sean Landsman’s work in Canada on Project Noble Beast. Before Landsman’s work, other well known Canadian scientists laid the groundwork for Project Noble Beast.

In this issue we will discuss research performed in 1975 and 1976 by G.L. Beggs, G.F. Holeton and E.J. Crossman at the Nogies Creek Muskellunge Research Station near Bobcaygeon, Ontario.

These researchers noted that despite the large amount of research focused on physiological effects of various forms of stress on fish, few comprehensive studies existed at the time. “Thus, a priori (reasoning or knowledge which proceeds from theoretical deduction rather than from observation or experience), muskellunge subjected to angling stress may undergo severe metabolic acidosis, which under extreme conditions such as capture by angling could be lethal,” researchers wrote. They indicated that because muskellunge contain approximately 56 percent white (axial) muscle tissue, lactic acid (produced by anaerobic glycolysis in the white muscle) concentrations could increase due to stress.

The research was entitled “Some Physiological Consequences of Angling Stress in Muskellunge, 1980.”