Talking to my mate about a barbel I caught last week, (photo on front page) and he commentated on the fishes tail saying it looked like it had been clipped, why would people do this ? he didn't go into detail about why they did it , only to say he thought it was for recognition purposes. Any body know if this is true or is he havin me over ?

Probably very true.

Why?

God knows. Just sad scum with nothing better to do than create a characteristic they will recognise if they pull the fish out the next they fish "their" swim, the next time their out fishing, or the time after that.

The even worse thing is, they then try to justify it by acting all scientific and in the know by saying their measuring movements and weight flucations. Bollocks.

The thing is with the local rivers, its not hard to know whereabouts the fish are at a any given time, we all know they the will weigh less than when they are getting ready to spawn. Maybe what i'm trying to say is that theres no need for the precise perfectness some people try to achieve.

Rant over.

seen this my self it is a disgrace

I would be interested to hear an arguement in favour of fin clipping as it is hard to understand what is going on in the heads of the anglers doing this. It can only be for very personal selfish reasons as it is a practice which is certainly doing no favours for the fish or the vast majority of responsible anglers.

Used to see it a lot whilst carp fishing in Holland and France. Supposedly it was for research but I am of the opinion that it probably had more to do with satisfying anglers egos.

Can't call them anglers if they maming fish on purpose, I just don't know whats up with the world , if I caught anybody doing it Id fill em in, since my mate told me about this Ive been having a look at other fish and a few seem to have been clipped, even the other wardle fish on the front page seems to have a piece missing.

Your right, they are not anglers at all but the description I would have used is not appropriate on a public forum.

Could this possibly be damage caused by an otter?We get a lot of this down on the Dorset Stour.

very doubtfull , there were no other marks on the fish at all, looked to be have been cut to me . Ive seen the damage otters do and its usually gashes akin to pike.

I had never heard of fin clipping before. Took a look at your photo, and there is a huge chunk missing. If deliberately clipped for some pseudo scientific "research" then surely the clip would have been far smaller? I would guess it is more likely to be some sort of natural damage, predator, or environmental. Did it look a fresh wound or might it have happened when the fish was far younger and smaller?

it wasn't a fresh wound. What made it really stand out was how straight the cut was. It was me that first noticed it when Mark was holding it for the photo. It just looked very unnatural.