Quote:
Originally Posted by Denadii Cho
I agree. Hooking a fish and throwing it back will kill a lot of them, wastes them.
|
What exactly is "a lot" in your mind? We've already had one member suggest 25-50%. If your "lot" mean's "a great deal" or "a large amount", then I guess you'd agree with 25-50%?
I spend a fair bit of time on the water, mostly fishing lakes with slot limits. I throw back the majority of what I catch, usually only keeping my limit of walleye on a couple outings in spring so that's probably 8-12 a year depending on where I'm fishing. That's likely less than 5% of the fish I catch in a year. Would you really suggest that I'm killing another 50 or so fish a year just by virtue of catch and release fishing?
Then why is it that I do not see dead fish floating or washed up on shore during each and every outing? Why, on a place like Lake of the Prairies, where some boats can catch 100 walleye on a good day do I not see dead fish everywhere? Should it not be absolutely littered with dead fish after the Prairie Classic tournament, where there are 240+ skilled anglers on the water for two days? So why isn't it? Where are all these mortally wounded/dead fish disappearing to?
Fishing isn't just about food. Sport fishing is a tourism industry, and without a responsible catch and release mindset it would not exist. People travel all over Canada supporting other communities. Heck, people travel to Canada to come take part in fishing here. If limits were opened up and a catch and keep mentality was promoted it would deplete the numbers and not be sustainable. Sure you could make it a daily limit of 1 or 2, but if one was required by law to keep what they catch then nobody is going to bother spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to go on a trip to catch one fish.