Two more on Soap!!

[fishfryer]

I used to carry a bar of soap in my boat to wash the gasoline smell off my hands before baiting my hook. I guess I probably destroyed the environment in several bodies of water. I'm a bad boy!

 

[greg_n_clayton]

I used to carry a bar of soap in my boat to wash the gasoline smell off my hands before baiting my hook. I guess I probably destroyed the environment in several bodies of water. I'm a bad boy!

Lawd have mercy !! Ain't no telling how many fish I am guilty of hurting over the last 50+ years.....as many baths as I have took in the creeks, rivers and lakes !

 

[Turpentine]

I am convinced now that taking my nude baths in the shoals after a few days of roughing it and saving my soap box to help start a fire is the wrong thing to do. Guess I will switch back to only using baby wipes and fishing with bait that comes in plastic packaging. Might as well fish with out a hook as well. I would hate for them to swallow it and then break my line.
Come to think of it I might as well quit driving as well, we all know the effect oil can have on the environment. Ironically Dawn detergent can help tremendously in certain areas. Let's just all stop using soap and save the money for gas and other products that clearly have a lesser impact on wild life.

 

[specialk]

jumping jehoshaphat, he done got all tore up 'bout soap....mercy....

 

[XIronheadX]

I read the other day about the bacteria levels being way up. Captain is just cleaning things up for a day. I think those catfish were cursing at Max, too. They got their mouth washed out. Good pics olcaptain.

 

[back_woods]

Tough crowd lol. Dont come around here with low self esteem, you prob wont make it lol

 

[specialk]

can i still punch a few holes in canned dog food and sling them out in the lake to make me some carp holes?....or is that frowned upon too??

 

[Tarpfisher]

Just when i thought this thread was all WASHED up!!

Now i can say i have heard it all.

 

[greg_n_clayton]

jumping jehoshaphat, he done got all tore up 'bout soap....mercy....

It is a trendy thang...ya know ? Getting all tore up and jacked outta shape and such !

 

[LTZ25]

I'm having no luck with the liquid soap , I guess I need to dip the hook twice .

 

[RamblinWreck]

Hey, I still wash with the stuff.

 

[Dutch]

So would straight lye soap be to over the top for fishing? I was thinking of making a batch with bacon grease for that extra zing.

 

[Teh Wicked]

Man, how did we survive these past 13,000 years or longer? Learn something new everyday.

 

[Cmp1]

jumping jehoshaphat, he done got all tore up 'bout soap....mercy....

IKR????

 

[Redbeardless]

With a whole world full of ** to have to worry about, I think that the least of these is using a few pieces of Ivory soap for fish bait. You can over complicate anything.
Thank you olcaptain, you keep doing what you do. Your posts are great and enjoyed by a lot of folks!!!
Redbeard

 

[Mauser]

I really hate to stir up trouble within the forum, but I found this topic very interesting and set off to do a little research. I hope you can all appreciate that this post is not intended to point fingers or place blame, but to help educate our community. It is my belief that we owe it to each other to be conscious of how humanity affects the environment that each and every one of us appreciates an order of magnitude more than the typical city-dweller.

With that said, I'll state my point bluntly: we do not need to be fishing with soap.

Ivory soap is considered a biodegradable soap. That looks nice on a label, and may make us feel environmentally conscious, but digging a little deeper will lead one to understand that the biodegradable tag shouldn't be interpreted as "safe for wildlife", but "made of ingredients that will break down naturally over time" (typically a year or less). This is a very important distinction.

According to the EPA, one ounce of biodegradable soap requires 20,000 ounces of water to be safe for fish. Do a little math in your head and you can reason that the few bars of soap used for a fishing trip will be dissolved quickly in the millions of gallons of water available in our river systems in reservoirs, right? It is true that eventually the soap used for bait will dissolve, disperse, and no longer be an environmental risk; however, the act of using soap as bait means that we are actively attracting fish to the highest concentration of the harmful substance and having the fish ingest it!

If the argument is that the fish will be eaten anyway (by the fisherman), think about how often a cat will steal bait without getting hooked, swimming away with a belly full of soap. I don't think any of us would feed soap to a fish we keep as a pet in a tank. Multiply that by the amount of times your hook gets baited - odds are, every bait eventually ends up in the belly of some organism.

Now to address why soap is harmful to water systems, and provide sources:

• Soaps and surfactants break the surface tension of water. This results in lower oxygen levels and prevents aquatic insects, such as the water strider, to be mobile on the surface.
• All detergents destroy the external mucus layers that protect the fish from bacteria and parasites; plus they can cause severe damage to the gills. Most fish will die when detergent concentrations approach 15 parts per million. Detergent concentrations as low as 5 ppm will kill fish eggs. Surfactant detergents are implicated in decreasing the breeding ability of aquatic organisms. It is worth noting here that Ivory soap is a surfactant detergent, not a phosphate detergent. This is a great paper to read!

My closing point is that using soap does not pose a significant advantage over traditional bait, and the risk alone should be enough to dissuade fisherman from using soap as bait. My worry is that if nobody speaks up about this issue, readers will be encouraged by threads like this to follow suit. Popular threads like this can be influential to the readers and result in many more outdoorsmen introducing soap to our waterways. In the spirit of our grandchildren and their grandchildren having access to our remaining healthy fisheries, I propose we no longer promote the idea of using soap for bait. Thanks for taking the time to read.

Wow!!!!! Really?!?! Fish on ol captain,with whatever bait you want use!!!!

 

[pop pop jones]

I really hate to stir up trouble within the forum, but I found this topic very interesting and set off to do a little research. I hope you can all appreciate that this post is not intended to point fingers or place blame, but to help educate our community. It is my belief that we owe it to each other to be conscious of how humanity affects the environment that each and every one of us appreciates an order of magnitude more than the typical city-dweller.

With that said, I'll state my point bluntly: we do not need to be fishing with soap.

Ivory soap is considered a biodegradable soap. That looks nice on a label, and may make us feel environmentally conscious, but digging a little deeper will lead one to understand that the biodegradable tag shouldn't be interpreted as "safe for wildlife", but "made of ingredients that will break down naturally over time" (typically a year or less). This is a very important distinction.

According to the EPA, one ounce of biodegradable soap requires 20,000 ounces of water to be safe for fish. Do a little math in your head and you can reason that the few bars of soap used for a fishing trip will be dissolved quickly in the millions of gallons of water available in our river systems in reservoirs, right? It is true that eventually the soap used for bait will dissolve, disperse, and no longer be an environmental risk; however, the act of using soap as bait means that we are actively attracting fish to the highest concentration of the harmful substance and having the fish ingest it!

If the argument is that the fish will be eaten anyway (by the fisherman), think about how often a cat will steal bait without getting hooked, swimming away with a belly full of soap. I don't think any of us would feed soap to a fish we keep as a pet in a tank. Multiply that by the amount of times your hook gets baited - odds are, every bait eventually ends up in the belly of some organism.

Now to address why soap is harmful to water systems, and provide sources:

• Soaps and surfactants break the surface tension of water. This results in lower oxygen levels and prevents aquatic insects, such as the water strider, to be mobile on the surface.
• All detergents destroy the external mucus layers that protect the fish from bacteria and parasites; plus they can cause severe damage to the gills. Most fish will die when detergent concentrations approach 15 parts per million. Detergent concentrations as low as 5 ppm will kill fish eggs. Surfactant detergents are implicated in decreasing the breeding ability of aquatic organisms. It is worth noting here that Ivory soap is a surfactant detergent, not a phosphate detergent. This is a great paper to read!

My closing point is that using soap does not pose a significant advantage over traditional bait, and the risk alone should be enough to dissuade fisherman from using soap as bait. My worry is that if nobody speaks up about this issue, readers will be encouraged by threads like this to follow suit. Popular threads like this can be influential to the readers and result in many more outdoorsmen introducing soap to our waterways. In the spirit of our grandchildren and their grandchildren having access to our remaining healthy fisheries, I propose we no longer promote the idea of using soap for bait. Thanks for taking the time to read.

Dog gone him, we should get a crowd gathered, then we go to the captain's house, drag him out to a big tree, throw a rope around his worthless neck and wash his mouth out with something safer than soap. Or we could just stuff his mouth full of plastic lures. That should take care of him!!!!!!!

 

[Milkman]

MERCY!!!!

 

[Deerhead]

WOW now I know what happened to me. When I was little, my mom washed my mouth out with Ivory soap. If I close my eyes I can still taste it.

 

[hdgapeach]

Hmmmmm....seems I tend to learn somthing new everyday,


...whether I want to or not.........


olcaptain; You reckon you could find the time to drop some soap baits down here in the ol' West Point Lake mud hole? After all that run off we've got from Atlanter the last few weeks, we probably could use some cleansing!!