Hello everyone,
I know fin clipping has been talked about alot on here but I would like to see some photos of how yall do it please. All the old photos that have been posted before are gone due to them being on photobucket so i have nothing to go by other than to clip the pelvic or anal fin for bass, but dont know what is done. Thank you in advance for any photo`s you can show me. Also has anyone every tried using a hole punch on a fin before? I wonder how good that would work.
if you want to see all the old photobucket photos, just use chrome as your browser, go to the extensions and download the photobucket embedded photo hotfix extension and activate it and they will all come back.
Here's an 2014 PB Magazine article about fin clipping by Dave Beasley.
Fin Clipping Subscribe
Be aware though....some of the fish in those pictures have been swimming in circles, endlessly, since the snip-snip.
Speaking of fish swimming in circles...
Has anyone used fin clipping as a culling technique?
In other words, instead of pulling a slotted fish from the pond, returning it after making it easy prey for the big girls in the pond. I have read of this option, curious if anyone has tried it, and if so, what do you clip?
Vortex, I've done it, but I didn't get results that were verifiable, so I stopped. Catching a LMB in school stirs them up, and they don't necessarily stay where they were. Clipping forage seems to get more immediate results because the LMB get active when they see the forage struggling when caught. With CNBG, I usually clip the caudal fin very close to the body. I use take apart orange Fiskars sewing scissors.
I've also trimmed the fins of both bass and bluegills for the past few years. Since big bass need big meals,rather than keeping six to 9" bass out of my pond,I'll clip all fins and put them back in the water.
Don't be surprised if you catch some of these fish again in the next few months. Even after a year when you catch one you'll find that the fins will grow back but will only be a short version of it's original self.
Like FirelsHot,if I clip a fin on shiners it usually results in a quicker strike from a bass.