If your fishing in waters that are a put and take fishery like the great lakes, Finger Lakes, and 70% of Oneida's walleye, fisherman should take there legal limit if they can catch it as to keep the fisheries in balance with stocking practices! When people get on this catch and release kick, they usually turn into preachers and make the people around them that enjoy eating fish feel guilty! I enjoy eating fish, giving fish away to other people who enjoy eating them, and I like looking at them on my wall! But I don't fish pristine waterways in the mountains or anything!
I release most of the fish I catch. If you don't release any fish your not being a sportsman.
Just found this thread. I come from a large family and I guess we were raised kind of old fashioned. As kids, we grew up on fresh veggies from our gardens, eggs from the neighbor's farm, and plenty of fish from our beloved St Lawrence River. I never knew bass were not good to eat until I started reading these fishing boards! We used to fight over them at dinner time. We still do. We still love our pike dinners, perch fillets with scrambled eggs for breakfast and Sunday fish fries with potatoes, cole slaw and dessert. Eating the fish we catch for is us more than simply providing nutrition. It's a bond with the outdoors and with our family and friends that goes back many generations.Sure there are fish we catch and release but usually we are fishing together and we are all trying to get enough fish for that day's or the next day's family dinner. People deeply enjoy the privilege of fishing for very different reasons, all of them respectable and admirable. Some feel they owe it to the habitat to release every fish they catch and others feel they are doing no harm at all by keeping and eating a fair caught share of the bounty of the water. No one is really right or wrong. My feeling is if you take fish home, don't waste it. Make sure you clean it and eat it or give it to someone who will. If you release your fish, use methods that will not unduly damage the fish and take care to put them back in good shape. I can't help but laugh a bit when I think about the trophy fish some guys catch. I have to believe those fish got so big by stealing all the minnows off my line for all these years! I've been feeding your trophies for a long time now. Best of luck getting them. Hope you catch the fish of a lifetime. Just remember, I probably spent ten buck in bait feeding the darn thing! Grady
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Topic: Catch and Release or keep all the fish you catch? (Read 4585 times)
