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Catch and Release, Don't Play With Your Food.
A 5¾ lbs Brown-Trout caught & returned by Graeme Storey. Time was that all fish like this were killed on salmon rivers. Returning this perfect fish preserves the precious gene pool.
Picture from www.speyfishing-grantown.co.uk
I often wonder when I browse through the angling press, reading about catch and release policies on game fishing waters that we are loosing the plot just a tad. Catch and release is common, fashionable and very politically correct never the less it should not become the moral philosophy underpinning the justification for our sport as it seems to have become in some quarters.
Let me say at the outset that returning a fish unharmed is not a bad thing, especially when it comes to the conservation of salmon stocks. Anglers are not after all fishmongers, we should not sell the fish we catch therefore there is no imperative to kill all we catch or fill the freezer with fish.
Personally I do return a lot of trout and in the case of salmon I haven’t killed a fish in eight years. When I return a trout it is because I am looking for a good sized fish for the table not a few little extras for the neighbour’s cat. In the case of salmon I have not killed a fish as I have not had the luck to take a fresh fish lately. All my fish in recent years have being either hens or gravid fish. Does this make me an advocate of catch and release since I do return more than I kill?
I am not an advocate of catch and release, I am an angler who chooses what fish he will take to eat, returning for various reasons those I reject. Why are my criteria for returning a fish?
Right Size Trout: one and a half to two and a half pounds is a good fish for the table. I will take them.
Large Trout: I will return them for I believe that any fish with those survival instincts is too precious to the gene pool to be killed.
Hens, Red Fish: I will return them without question.
Just Drop Dead Gorgeous: That five and a half pound trout above right is so perfect I could not kill it if I caught it, well done Mr Storey.
So what about catch and release as a policy? Obviously I do practice catch and release taking consummate care to do so in a manner that minimises damage to the fish. Generally I play the fish hard and use forceps to release while still the fish in the water. I would rather cut the line and lose a fly than handle a fish I am not going to kill. Better still, as soon as I decide that a fish is not for me I give it slack line hoping it will unhook itself.
Expressing a purely personal view, I believe that total catch and release as a means of dispensing with the nastiness of killing fish sucks, a cop out to the tree huggers! Dispensing with killing does not make angling any more palatable to the non angling fraternity and we should not pander to that idea. Calling catch and release a sport is distasteful, for it devalues the life of the fish to little more than that of a toy. We have no right to treat a living creature as a toy? Someone who shoots a pheasant doesn’t just wing it a tad so the bird can be photographed then released, he or she shoots to kill. If you want to photograph birds your are termed an ornithologist not a hunter, I don't no the term for someone who just wants to take pictures of himself holding fish out of water, but I'll come up with something I am sure.
If you want to admire fish get an aquarium! I make no apology for sounding harsh because the sight of diseased and dead fish on fisheries where catch and release is practised is nauseating. When we fish we should be clear in our minds that our prey is a rather tasty food item. We should not fall for the suggestion put to me by some ‘antis’ that if we want to eat fish it would be more humane to buy our fish from the supermarket.
Fish in the wild
do not come in pre-pack sizes and that is one of the joys of wild
fishing.
You never know what you are going to catch. I have on many
occasions caught and released a string of fish while waiting for
that fish for the table to come along ( and gone home for fish and
chips because I was over ambitious). Catch and release
as a blanket policy, however, demotes the fish to an entertainment
commodity like tin ducks in a fairground arcade. There to be shot
time and time again just for the hell of the score.
Let us not forget that part of what we do, which goes back to time immemorial, puts food on the table. We fish to eat, on occasion we take what we need and return what we cannot consume. We have no right to treat the fish as a play thing. When we kill a fish and take it home to eat we remain in contact with the purpose of our sport and show respect for the creatures we kill.
Catching fish, playing them, handling them, photographing and distressing them and worst of all kissin 'em and putting them back is not in the spirit of the art of the angle. Nor, I might add, is using excessively light tackle. I believe this activity it is erroneously referred to as using 'sporting tackle' in order to prolong the fight and give the fish a fighting chance to escape. If you intend to return a fish use tackle appropriate to the tactics required to catch fish, tackle that will allow you land the fish quickly tiring it for the net or release without exhausting it, in the least amount possible.
Go fishing, it is a great and rewarding sport, take fish for the table, use tackle that is suited to the purpose of stealth while strong enough to land the fish in good time. When you have your bag why not just stop fishing, enjoy the crack with other anglers or do some ornithology. Show restraint when you are out fishing, put fish back that you do not want, but don't play with your food for fish are not thrill gadgets.
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