Like what Jim said
Jim McLennan said it best a few years ago in one of his books or the AFG. Can't remember which one.
Catch and release is not a religion, it's simply a management tool. There zealots who are deeply rooted in 100% C&R, along the lines of Lee Wulf ("A trout is simply too valuable to kill) to the European / Indigenous perspective that "playing with your food" is unethical. I am neither; I am 99% C&R because where I fish, that's the regs. One location I fish, I legally take my limit whenever I can (it's a lake).
We have catch and release because when you look at the archived photos of fishing around Banff 120+ years ago at the Glenbow museum, you quickly realize that keeping 50 trout a day, many between 16 and 26 inches, is simply unsustainable. Keeping apex predators like bull trout, and treating them like trash fish because "they eat everything", was unsustainable.
There is very, very little wiggle room in this province in managing fisheries, fish, and fishermen/people. Not that I don't have criticism for plenty of SRD /AEP policies, but, being a fisheries bio in this province is fairly challenging on most days and enormously difficult on other days. I digress.
In other words, bottom line, catch and release has become the defacto "must have" regulation in this province. Especially in the South Sask river basin, where the angling pressure is sky high, especially on the "three rivers". (Or walleye / pike lakes, for that matter) It's why I rarely fish the Oldman / Livingstone in the summer anymore. Nothing more than a personal choice of course.
But if we had catch and keep on some of our rivers, there really would be very little fish left. And it's also why I have been advocating for Classified Waters in some areas. It's just unreal to see the number of anglers on the Liv, for example, in July and August. Smh. In this day and age, I advocate a far more aggressive approach to managing anglers, imo.
Exact same reasons apply to our lakes; what happens when people are allowed 30 perch, 10 pike, 10 walleye out of our lakes, like they were allowed to, back when I was a kid in the 70's. Collapsed populations are the inevitable. Not rocket science, lol. Tag system and slot sizes become THE inevitable compromises and solutions.
Same old, same old in Alberta. Most of our water is north of Edmonton. Most of our anglers are Edmonton and south. We have variety, but not much else. Many anglers, little water, only so many fish. What are you going to do, except use C&R as a widely implemented catch and release instrument. Catch and release isn't ethically superior to catch and keep, that's simply a distracting, "meaty" and enjoyable(?) debate. Catch and release is (or should be) borne out of necessity.
Enough tangents from me?? lol. I'll be more straightforward to answer the original question; for lakes, anglers can be / are an enormous factor on fish populations. But cottage owners, drought, agriculture, and water tables are factors as well.
Rivers? Don't make me laugh. Yeah, okay, sure...goes without saying....of course anglers have an impact, why else would someone like me think Classified Waters are the way to go for a select few streams??
But.
But damage and abuse? By anglers on our trout rivers? Many have had C&R since 1998. Instead, how about:
How about exploratory roads in the Oldman headwaters that go unmitigated or repaired?
How about an ill-advised dam that was built when off-storage solutions were available?
How about mining and it's adverse effects? Teck, Fording R, Elk R., and selenium anyone?
How about other pollutants: fish consumption (I'm talking other than natural mercury) advisories in my lifetime started on every river in Alberta that had a pulp mill; dioxins and furans.
How about logging companies removing clearcuts in headwaters, not always observing riparian setbacks, and turning spawning streams like Hidden Creek into a coffee coloured erosion delivery system?
How about irrigation? The South Sask., Milk, & St, Mary's river basins, whose waters are over-allocated to irrigation districts all across southern Alberta?
How about linear disturbances and rampant, unchecked off road abuse (some jokers driving the OHV's even ignore the bridges they built for themselves over creeks)?
On and on it goes.
Right now, trout stream anglers, relatively speaking, are doing comparatively little damage with respect to how a trout's habitat and environment is getting hammered on a yearly basis. Don't make laugh, indeed.
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