Interesting. I don't use these types of devices so probably don't know what i'm talking about but wouldn't the fish detect it while chewing the bait in it's throat teeth and spit it out like it does other unwanted objects that might get sucked up?? They don't swallow big baits whole!
Are you absolutely certain about that Andrew?....and what do you classify as big? I am aware that barbel have pharyngeal teeth, like all cyprinids....but do they bother using them when consuming soft baits, which is all you can use these devices for? Sure they use them for crushing crayfish, mussels, snails....and some of my boilies
otherwise the contents would not be easily digested....but I doubt they bother doing so with a 10<30mm nugget of spam, which is what these would mainly be used for....but I am only guessing, I must confess.
I know for a fact that carp (sorry
) CAN easily crunch up tiger nuts, and sometimes they do just that. However....it is also a fact that sometimes they swallow them whole, and the same can be said for Brazil nuts
Why, I don't know....but in common with most long term carpers, I have had enough whole nuts pooped out on/in my net/mat/leg/bank/hand to be utterly certain that they do
. So....I know carp at least don't ALWAYS chew even relatively hard baits.....I suspect that the same can be said for most fish. Competition for food in shoaling fish causing the well known 'Eat it
now and
quickly....or loose it' syndrome? Pure ruddy laziness? Who knows?
None of this is scientific proof of anything, one way or another. However...it worries ME enough that I don't bother using something that
may be risky...when there are plenty of safe alternatives. Having said all that, I repeat that I am not really
strongly 'anti' these things....I just choose not to use them, and offered this up for discussion in a thread advocating their use, nothing more than that.
Cheers, Dave.