At the recent Upper Midwest Emmy Award ceremony, held on October 19th at Mystic Lake Casino, our Prairie Sportsman segment on the dangers of barotrauma were found worthy of an Upper Midwest Emmy award. We actually beat out another one of our nominated segments “Weed Terminator.” Congrats to our Pioneer PBS partners at Postcards who won two Emmys this year!
I was really proud of this segment. I feel like barotrauma is an important topic that needs to be talked about far and wide. That happened to some extent last winter due to Lindner Media‘s episode of Angling Buzz getting the ball rolling. I honestly have to thank them for letting us in on their turf to help tell this story. They deserve some of the credit for this award.
I also will give Aaron Wiebe credit for creating more awareness for the issue, albeit through some concerns he had with some of the methodology. Regardless of where we all stand on the issue, it’s good that we’re talking about it.
For the record, barotrauma occurs in fish when they are brought up from deep water. Visible symptoms include bulging eyes, stomach pushed out into the mouth and gas bubbles under the skin. Sometimes symptoms aren’t visible, but internal damage may be done. It’s similar to the bends in humans.
Research has shown that fish that are physoclistous, such as crappies, walleyes, muskies and more, are susceptible to barotrauma if caught in water deeper than 30-ish feet deep. On the other hand, fish that are categorized as physostomous, like lake trout, have a pneumatic duct that connects their swim bladder to their esophagus that allows them to expel gases as they ascend, allowing them to self-regulate.
Not all fish are affected, but it’s safe to assume that if you’re going to fish deeper than around that 30-foot mark, you could be harming the population by catching and releasing fish. We recommend that you catch your keepers and then move shallower if you plan on releasing the fish you catch.
I learned about this during the MN Fish Summit at Clam’s headquarters in 2023. I knew a little bit about barotrauma from laker fishing at Tazin in Saskatchewan, but hadn’t thought much about it for crappies and walleyes. I generally don’t fish deep enough to worry, but as I sat and listened to Marc Bacigalupi and Jeremy Smith talk about the issue, I realized this was something we needed to be a part of.
Jeremy explained that they filmed an episode of Angling Buzz and that the crew would be heading out again to continue the research. I asked if Prairie Sportsman could be a part of it and everyone welcomed us on the project.
We spent 3 days on the ice near Walker catching crappies, watching LiveScopes, and learning about how the DNR is compiling data. Some of the methodology had been refined from the previous year and some stayed the same. Science requires trends and consistencies so to get an accurate picture of an issue they had to continue some of the processes that were used the year before. While Angling Buzz recorded their own episode, so did Dan Amundson and I for Prairie Sportsman.
We also recorded a number of Sporting Journal Radio podcasts about it that I will link below. The episode of Prairie Sportsman is called “Hooks and Hazards” and it also won a 2nd place award at the recent AGLOW Awards-In-Craft ceremony at Kentucky Lake in September. Here is the episode:
