I’d never heard of this topic until the other day, but with a quick search I soon found a lot of other people talking about the same thing. It seems there are anglers all over the place pouring carbonated drinks into their fish in an effort to stop them bleeding from the gills. But can Coke, Sprite or Mountain Dew really help or is it just an old wives tale? For starters, let’s talk about why gills are such an important part of the fish.
Not only are gills the fish’s only means of breathing, they’re also an area where the fish’s blood is very close to the surface, meaning it’s a clear point of vulnerability. As this discussion on Reddit points out, the rest of a fish’s body is well protected:
“Scales are extremely tough. […] Skin is very tough in fish too. It’s a tough organ to pierce, as it should be, and it lies just beneath the scales. […] But, one other thing when it comes to cuts in fish, most of the fishes’ body cavity are below a massive layer of muscle tissue which can be quite thick in some species. It also lacks significant blood arteries and veins in the musculature itself. Thus, most “heavy bleeding” in fish really comes from internal bleeding, not from cuts on the body.”
You’ve probably seen fish yourself with big wounds on their bodies – perhaps inflicted by another fish, a heron, cormorant, otter or a seal. Sometimes it’s hard to believe they survived, but survive they did. But you may also have had experience of hooking a fish deep in the gills. How fragile they seem then. The blood flows and it can seem like it will never stop.
That’s why this discussion on fishing blog, Gink and Gasoline, caught my attention. The author, Louis Cahill, noticed the fish he’d just caught was bleeding from the gills and was hit by that all-too-familiar twinge of guilt. But this is where it gets interesting. As Louis reports:
“Thank God Kent was with me. […] He opened the fish’s mouth and poured the Coke down her throat. As soon as it hit the injured gill the bleeding stopped. It was like magic. I’m not sure if it’s the carbonation or the acid but something in the Coke cauterized the wound. It saved that fish’s life. I know it for a fact because I saw her in that same pool several weeks later…”
This report and Louis’ eye-catching photograph (below), really got my interest, but I found it hard to believe that Coca Cola could contain special healing qualities. So I read the comments… some serious: Continue reading – http://drowningworms.com/can-you-stop-fish-bleeding-from-the-gills-with-coke-sprite/