It’s Time to Rethink Catch-and-Release Trout Fishing—or Get Much Better at It

Releasing a pleasant brown in Wyoming. Photograph: Tom Koerner / USFWS

The title of this text by Christine Peterson in Outside Life is purposely controversial, however the creator covers plenty of floor and discuss to plenty of specialists who’ve issues in regards to the present state of catch-and-release laws on some iconic rivers within the West. Whether or not or not you agree with the primary premise or any of the opinions expressed, it’s at all times a great factor to look at one’s sacred cows:

I bear in mind asking the previous fisheries supervisor after I first began reporting on the Platte River greater than 15 years in the past: Why they didn’t merely make the river catch-and-release solely? He informed me he needed anglers to have the chance to take a fish house with them in the event that they needed. Catch-and-release fishing, he stated, and most frequently catch-and-release fly fishing, isn’t the one solution to fish.

However as different prized rivers within the West go to catch-and-release solely, the notion of releasing a fish to develop greater can generally attain an uncomfortable conclusion. With out extra thought to how these fish are being caught and launched, they might nicely not survive to seek out the following angler’s hook.

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