After doing a bunch of poking around into the subject of fish mortality from new plastic baits, I am putting some of the stuff I have learned here.
Much of the material I have been reading lean toward the need to produce and use biodegradable products instead of the pure plastic products that started the trend for this method of bass angling. This type of soft plastic bait is also used for many other fishes, fresh and salt water, but the highest use for them is bass.
Soft plastic baits are made up primarily of plastisol which contains polyvinylchloride (PVC) and a plasticizer. The PVC is not biodegradable and may not decompose for a very long time if ever. This ties in with my question of will a fish that has ingested one of these baits be able to survive.
At a fly fishing club meeting the other night we had a guest speaker, Dennis Lee. Mr Lee is a retired Supervising Fisheries Biologist from California Fish and Game, and I questioned him if plastic baits would break down in the fish’s digestive tract. He said no to this, and went on to describe some new alternative soft baits that are biodegradable. He also said if the plastics I found were too large to pass through the anal port, the fish would likely starve and die.
That conversation confirmed my suspicions, and sparked interest in the biodegradable baits mentioned by him and a fellow at a local tackle shop. They both mentioned Berkley Big Gulp. Research here on the internet turned up a few more.
I believe for the continued health of our water ways, and fish stocks that anglers concerned with issues regarding plastics should do everything in their collective power to press for soft artificial baits that are at least biodegradable. It makes good sense to use these baits for the ecology alone. Some of these baits even have nutritional value, so we may as well feed the fish too.
What do you think?