Bob, if fish blood won't coagulate under water, what is the survival advantage of having the ability to clot, since fish are rarely on dry land? Seems unlikely a clotting mechanism that does not work would have evolved. Actually, I don't really know if fish blood clots at all but I seem to recall clotted blood on fish when I clean them. The kind of study that needs to be done is to have three large pens available for the sample fish, one for mouth-hooked and released fish, and the other two for deep hooked fish, one with hooks left in, one with hooks removed. I would guess that a sample size in each group would have to be 30 or so to minimize random effects of sampling. I have not seen the studies alluded to in the In Fisherman article, they may have done this sort of thing. I wish I could reference them for my own curiosity.
