Lifestyle

3 Myths About Deep Sea Catch-And-Release Fishing

Published

4 years ago

March 13, 2021

When divers resurface too quickly from deep water, the intense change in pressure can make gasses dissolved in their blood bubble up. This problem can lead to nausea, fatigue, joint pain, and paralysis. In the worst cases, it can be fatal.

This is known as barotrauma, and it doesn’t only affect us. Dolphins, fish, and sea turtles can suffer severe injuries from sudden pressure changes.

When anglers pull fish from water 30 feet deep and more, their catch is susceptible to barotrauma. Coming rapidly to the surface can make the swim bladder in fish inflate or rupture. This can lead to the death of the fish.

If you’re deep-sea fishing and want to release a fish instead of eating it, you should know some myths about barotrauma:

#1: If The Fish Isn’t Bloated, There Is No Barotrauma

Bloating is indeed the most common sign in a fish you’ve caught. However, some fish – including sharks and cobia – lack swim bladders. They might not show bulging eyes or float on the surface after you release them, but they still could suffer from gasses in their tissues, just like people.

#2: A Fish That Swims Away Is Fine

Some anglers believe if a deepwater fish swims away with no apparent injuries that it doesn’t have barotrauma. Not necessarily.

Research indicates that barotrauma can have effects later that we don’t always see when we release the fish. A fish might swim away but still be injured. Then, it could get eaten by a predator as it swims back to the reef.

A barotrauma study on red snapper found that at least 15% of fish taken from deepwater died almost immediately. About 13% of fish were able to swim away but died within three days. So, nearly one out of three fish in the study did not survive catch and release.

Reef fish, particularly the oldest and biggest females that produce the most eggs per year, are too valuable to the ecosystem to be lost at that rate. It’s essential for anglers who catch and release to use release methods that provide fisher with a better chance of living another day. Even a small improvement in survival rates for these fish can mean millions more fish are saved every year.

#3: Venting Is The Only Way To Treat Barotrauma

Venting means puncturing the side of a fish’s body with a metal tool. When it is done right, venting can release the built-up gasses so they can escape from the bladder. This improves its ability to go back down deep and hopefully survive.

But venting comes with problems. First, it can be hard to vent the fish correctly. You need to have a decent knowledge of fish anatomy. If you poke it a few inches the wrong way, you could damage the fish’s internal organs. Also, you should not vent a fish when the stomach is sticking from the mouth or when the intestines come out of the anus. This can kill the fish.

Even if you vent the fish correctly, it still can suffer from the procedure, including a damaged swim bladder or infections.

Venting does improve the chance the fish will survive, but there are other options.

Try A Descending Device

A descending device returns the fish to deep water, where it can usually recover from barotrauma. You can use a descending device on any fish species, and you don’t even need to know fish anatomy! The more anglers that use descending devices, the more likely deepsea fish will thrive. And that is good for our planet.

Lifestyle

Derik Fay: The Quiet Architect of Impact-First Entrepreneurship

Published

51 mins ago

May 8, 2025

Michelle Langton

In an era where noise often overshadows results, Derik Fay is quietly shaping a different kind of legacy — one built not on showmanship, but on undeniable substance. For more than two decades, Fay has engineered the rise of over 30 companies across industries as diverse as real estate, technology, healthcare, and entertainment. Yet his name rarely leads headlines — not because he hasn’t earned it, but because he never needed it to validate his success.

Growing up in Rhode Island, Fay learned early that the world rarely hands out opportunity; it must be seized, created, and multiplied. While many of his peers pursued traditional paths, he took a risk that would define the rest of his life: at just 22, he founded 3F Management, a venture firm with an entirely different mission — to build companies that would outlast trends, outperform markets, and, most importantly, out-impact their competition.

Instead of obsessing over short-term wins, Fay approached entrepreneurship like a craftsman. Much like Henry Ford, who famously said, “A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business,” Fay built companies that weren’t just profitable — they were purposeful. Every venture was designed to create real, sustainable value, both for shareholders and for the communities they served.

Through his relentless focus on structure and leadership, Fay’s ecosystem of businesses now touches thousands of lives daily — from employees finding new opportunities to entrepreneurs gaining the mentorship they never had before. But unlike typical moguls who boast about headcounts, Fay views every job created as a ripple in a larger mission: empowering individuals to write better futures for themselves.

Where others have scaled fast and crashed harder, Fay’s model thrives on foundations few are patient enough to build anymore. His method is slower, smarter, and almost surgical: find what others overlook, fix what others fear, and grow what others abandoned too early. It’s this principle that led him to not just build companies — but to resurrect them, reimagine them, and sometimes even walk away if the mission no longer aligned with the impact he envisioned.

Fay’s philosophy extends far beyond boardrooms. Philanthropy isn’t a checkbox at the end of his success story — it’s embedded into the way he scales. His ventures are built with giving back written into their DNA, from local community initiatives to broader mentorship platforms that help emerging entrepreneurs get their first real shot at success. His life’s work is proof that wealth and generosity are not mutually exclusive — they are, in fact, essential partners.

Today, while newer generations of entrepreneurs hustle for likes and magazine covers, Fay’s name is whispered in rooms where real power moves. His reputation — built quietly but relentlessly — is that of a man who delivers, builds, and elevates without the need for public validation.

In a business world increasingly built on spectacle, Derik Fay reminds us that the most lasting legacies are forged not in the glare of the spotlight, but in the thousands of lives changed quietly along the way.

For more insights into Derik Fay’s ventures and philanthropic efforts, visit www.derikfay.com and follow him on Instagram @derikfay