Lauren, I'm so sorry I have to post this. :sad I hope you understand i'm not trying to hurt you, just trying to clear this up. Fish CAN feel pain, they do have nerves like we do, just in smaller quantities, and they are not all over like our skin. A fish will fight when cought on a fishing line because there is not enough nerves to tell it, "ouch go that way", but there is enough nerves to tell it "hey somethings got me". Pain is an electro-chemichal signal to the brain that something is wrong with a bodily tissue. If they could not feel pain, they wouldn't even flinch if you tried to do something like cut off a fin or try to gut it alive.