“If you’re gonna kill fish, kill them fast. That’s the humane way. It’s a philosophical, common-sense approach, not based on any scientific assessment of pain.” — fisheries biologist Steve Gephard

At least twice a month I serve my family yellow-perch filets, first dredged in flour, then dipped in beaten eggs and rolled in equal portions of Italian bread crumbs and panko that’s sparsely mixed with grated parmesan cheese. I fry the filets in canola oil, squeeze on lemon juice, and add salt and pepper.

Yellow perch cooked this way gets my vote for the best-tasting of all freshwater fish. They’re the favorite meal of my smart, beautiful, kind granddaughter. But she won’t fish with me because she doesn’t like the sound of breaking perch necks or the sight of the blood that squirts from the gills.

I break the necks of perch (as well as other panfish, bass, pickerel and trout) with one quick, fluid motion, pressing heads against the boat’s gunwale or, when I’m on ice, against my knee. It takes two seconds. For bigger fish, I insert my index finger and middle finger in the gills and bend. This takes three seconds. My grandfather taught me to break the necks of fish, and my great grandfather taught him.

So here’s the question I put to my granddaughter about 12 years ago, the last time we fished together: “Which would you rather hear: The two-second crunch of broken necks or perch flapping in agony against the sides of the cooler for half an hour?”

My late angling buddy, Bill Adamonis, was a master “jiggerman.” Jiggermen are a dying breed of ice fishermen. We eschew tip-ups. Instead, we fish with handmade “jiggersticks” and handmade “jiggers” baited with perch eyeballs. When Bill and I shuffled around March “prayer ice” and heard the warble of a bluebird or the “feebee” song of a chickadee he would utter this lament: “Spring always comes so fast.”

You couldn’t tell Bill much about anything, especially fish or fishing. When I told him he needed to break the necks of perch he emphatically declared that this would impede fileting. When I walked around the ice, breaking the necks of his flapping perch he puffed and blew.

But later that day Bill learned something about fish he hadn’t known: Breaking necks makes filleting easier because it gives you a better grip on the head. More importantly, it bleeds fish (which improves their flavor); and it prevents stress, which infuses the flesh with lactic acid, cortisol and adrenaline (all of which degrade flavor and speed decay).

Most importantly, it’s the decent, humane thing to do. Leaving fish dancing to death on ground, ice, or in boat, bucket or cooler is comparable to placing humans in metal cages and submerging them until their lungs fill with water and they expire. The difference is that fish take at least ten times longer to “drown” in air.

Metal stringers are popular because anglers imagine that they keep fish fresh. Stringers do no such thing. What keeps fish fresh is killing them instantly, bleeding them, and immediately placing them on ice.

Fish commonly die on stringers, and nothing degrades fish flesh more than soaking carcasses in water, especially warm water. Fish can respire on stringers for a few hours; but this prolongs stress, thereby increasing infusion of lactic acid, cortisol and adrenaline.

What’s more, stringers are a major nuisance. They have to be kept in the water; you have to pull them every time you move your boat; and they hold only about a dozen fish. I live in Massachusetts where, as in most of Yankeeland, there’s no daily limit on panfish. (In New Hampshire, where I have a fishing camp, it’s 50 — 25 of any one species.) Panfish are so fecund that you need not feel guilty about filling a cooler. In fact, by doing so you’re apt to reduce the possibility of stunting.

Some ten years ago Dr. Brian Hiller, a wildlife professor at Bemidji (Minnesota) State University, had an epiphany about stringers. “I hadn’t really heard much about the value of bleeding fish,” he told me. “As I read more and more about the reasons to bleed fish I hung up my stringer for good. Now, if I’m keeping a fish, I bleed it right away, slice at the base of the gills to speed the loss of blood, and put it in a cooler with an ice-water slurry. No need to torture a fish by shoving a big safety pin through its mouth and dragging it behind the boat until I’m done fishing. A fast, respectful death gets the blood out of the flesh and leaves a cleaner, whiter filet that is much better tasting.”

Live wells are more humane than stringers and way more convenient. They allow high-grading (check regulations to make sure it’s legal in your state), but they still cause stress; and they facilitate illegal stocking of alien invasives by bucket biologists.

The outdoor press is rife with pieces attempting to prove that fish “don’t feel pain.” It’s all speculation and junk science intended to counter calls by the animal-rights community for a ban on recreational fishing — especially catch-and-release fishing, which it defines as torture for fun.

It would make no biological sense for any vertebrate not to feel pain (or severe “discomfort,” if one prefers). In one study, acetic acid was injected into the lips of rainbow trout, causing them to respire rapidly, delay feeding and rub their lips on gravel.

“Fish do feel pain,” Penn State University biologist Victoria Braithwaite told Hakai Magazine. “It’s likely different from what humans feel, but it is still a kind of pain.”

Author with three 15-inch yellow perch caught on same day from a pond in central Massachusetts, dispatched using the described method (photo: Ted WIlliams).

Hakai goes on to report: “At the anatomical level, fish have neurons known as nociceptors, which detect potential harm, such as high temperatures, intense pressure, and caustic chemicals. Fish produce the same opioids — the body’s innate painkillers — that mammals do. And their brain activity during injury is analogous to that in terrestrial vertebrates: sticking a pin into goldfish or rainbow trout, just behind their gills, stimulates nociceptors and a cascade of electrical activity that surges toward brain regions essential for conscious sensory perceptions (such as the cerebellum, tectum, and telencephalon), not just the hindbrain and brainstem, which are responsible for reflexes and impulses.”

Because the animal-rights community has it right that a fish feels at least some discomfort from a hook in its mouth or gullet, anglers can help their public image by preventing far more intense and completely unnecessary suffering caused by not killing fish quickly. This fact appears lost on most anglers with whom I converse, especially anglers on Facebook.

There's a learning opportunity on Facebook if one filters out all the food photos, ads, feel-good wildlife fairytales, introspective gushing and political bloviating. For example, photos of dead and dying fish on stringers abound on fishing sites I visit. To anyone paying attention to the posts and comments, it’s clear that stringer use varies inversely with angler experience.

On “Perch & Monster Perch” I recently offered this comment in response to a photo of nine large yellow perch hanging from a stringer: “Nice. I've found that perch taste better if you instantly break their necks and put them on ice. This bleeds them also. On a stringer they build up lactic acid and adrenaline that degrades the flesh. Also, breaking necks is more humane.”

The first response was encouraging: “Ted: I always wondered why some fishermen do that and then throw them in their cooler. Thanks for the tip. From an old timer at that.”

But then I got these:

“Your insane.”

“Breaking there neck? What neck lmao not a duck.”

“They’re fish man.”

“I live on lake Erie but never broke there Neck? Lol if I did my kids would probably throw rocks at me!!! Lmao.”

“Hope u broke there Fing necks. Good grief Ted won't stop, drinking n FB bad combo lol.”

Then in response to my patient explanations and a photo of me holding three 15-inch perch with broken necks: laughing emoticons.

I don’t know anyone with greater knowledge of fish than Steve Gephard, Connecticut’s former supervising fisheries biologist and now an environmental consultant working on fish passage. He offers this: “There has been lots of debate in the lay press about whether fish feel pain, but I’m not aware of much research going on in the technical press. By taking blood samples we can document stress, but not pain. Stress causes [flesh degrading] buildup of adrenaline and lactic acid. I fish a lot for bluefish. I kill them quickly by cutting their throats. This also bleeds them. Then I put them on ice. Regardless of what pain fish register, if you’re gonna kill fish, kill them fast. That’s the humane way. It’s a philosophical, common-sense approach, not based on any scientific assessment of pain.

“I’m not sure there’s a way of quantifying even human pain. You go to your doctor, and he asks you what’s your pain level — one through ten. That’s not scientific, but at least you have the ability to communicate. A fish doesn’t have that ability. As a scientist, I try to avoid anthropomorphizing, but when it comes to killing something, you put yourself in the position of, say, a perch, and that is: You’re gonna die. Do you want to die quickly or slowly? It’s hard to imagine a human opting for the slow way. Again, if you’re gonna kill a fish, kill it fast.”

Ted Williams writes exclusively about fish and wildlife for national publications. He is a former information officer for the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife and columnist for Fly Rod & Reel, Audubon and The Nature Conservancy. He has pursued yellow perch and other panfish since the 1950s.