Tag Archives: barotrauma

I hope many of you have looked at the title of this blog post and wondered, “What in the world is “barotrauma?””.  Barotrauma is the pointy-headed fish biologist term for what happens to some species of fish when they are quickly raised from relatively deep water to the surface.  Most species of our freshwater fish have swim bladders–internal “bags” of gas that the fish use to regulate buoyancy.  Fish living at depths of 20-30 feet or more only have a …

I am going deep with this blog post, no pun intended.  Have to start with a story. . . . Several years back on a late October day, I spent some time fishing Elwood Reservoir with the maintenance man from our headquarters facilities (yes, even our maintenance men hunt and fish!).  We found some baitfish in deep water, in fact I will never forget watching the depth-finder, jigging a Rattle Snakie in 51 feet of water, when I hooked a really nice fish–ended up …