Fishing in your classroom
Putting a fish back
Six moves, in the order you make them. Get one wrong and the fish swims off looking fine — and dies an hour later. Every answer here is quoted from the ministry.
The six moves
Open each card for the answer — and for where it comes from.
Before touching the fish, what do I do?
Can I hold it by the gills?
How long can I keep it out of the water?
How do I hold it?
Are there days when I should not?
How do I let it go?
The hook is in deep. Now what?
Two questions, a few seconds each.
- 1Is the hook lodged in the stomach, the oesophagus or the gills?
- 2Would pulling it out seriously injure the fish?
If you answer YES to either one: cut the line.
It reduces injury and bleeding, and greatly improves its chances. The hook dissolves on its own in time, without stopping the fish from eating.
To avoid it: an artificial lure rather than live bait, and a circle hook rather than a J hook. The ministry writes that these two choices can cut release mortality by up to 50 %.
Before you even go
Can I fish anywhere, any time?
And if I catch nothing, do I still report it?
Can I move a fish from one lake to another?
What do I leave behind?
For the teacher
- Count fifteen seconds out loud with the class. It is shorter than anyone expects, and that is the whole lesson.
- The warm-water rule is the hard one: sometimes the responsible choice is to stop fishing altogether. Worth sitting with.
- Cutting the line feels like losing the hook. It is: the ministry says the hook dissolves on its own and the fish lives. A good trade to make explicit.
- Every card shows the government page it comes from. Nothing here is an opinion about how to treat an animal.