The bluefin bite was as perfect as I had ever seen it.
Thirty- to 6o-pound fish were so close to shore I could have paddled a kayak to reach them. The seas were flat, the wind was light, and the fish ate any fly landing within 10 feet. My back liked the fact that I didn’t have to log countless hours on the pounding sea looking for them and my wallet breathed a sigh of relief since I could forgo six-buck-a-gallon gas on the docks.
The quarter moon meant the fishing would remain consistently hot for a week. It did for the three consecutive days I was there. I’d catch and release one or two, poke around a bit, and then catch and release one or two more-you know how it goes. After battling these tough fish, I needed a day off so I took it. When I returned, I found nothing. There were no breaks, no tails, no boils, and certainly no fish. They were all gone.
In the Pilgrim State of Massachusetts and the Ocean State of Rhode Island, a few grandfathered permits allow commercial outfits to net tuna and the word about a hot tuna bite close to shore, the same bite I just fished, was the topic of conversations on websites, blogs, online forums, and even in the newspapers. Captains referenced it in code speak on their radios, but make no mistake: the word was out. It just happened the commercial boats arrived and filled their holds with netted fish during my 24-hour sabbatical. Just like that, the tuna bite in this area was over. The fish I released were netted anyway.
Fishing continues as it always does, and I shifted my focus to striped bass and bonito. I caught enough to suit me as a sport fisherman, but it made me question the situation at hand. Where do we stand with the catch-and-release ethic?
It seems that catch and release grew out of centuries of sustenance-fishing pressure from both the recreation and commercial sides. Combined with dams built on rivers for hydro-power and pollution caused by industrialization, fish stocks depleted. The spirit of the 1960s motivated many anglers to follow Lee Wulff’s mantra of “a good game fish is too valuable to be caught once.” The fish that were typically caught for the table lived to be caught another day.
The ideology of catch and release may also have been part of a British Invasion. I’ve heard the movement began across the pond with a group of coarse fishermen who returned their landed carp to avoid overfishing the coveted big-lipped fish. Regardless, we anglers entered a new era of fishing, one that continues to arouse a tremendous amount of heated discussion to this day. It’s evolved to a point where often, if an angler kills a fish, there is a public outcry.
Perhaps the boundaries of catch and release blur because what was once an ethic now carries legal implications. Take the striped bass, for example. In my home state of Massachusetts, the legal length for keeping a striped bass is 28 inches. You can keep two fish per day for table fare. If an angler kills his two bass, he may continue to fish provided he releases all other fish. These are Massachusetts’ rules, and when I run my boat across state lines, there are different rules to follow. When the commercial side says a species is “recovered” and the recreational side says it’s not, then a moderator needs to make a call that is fair and equitable to both sides. My vote? A single policy that protects breeding fish would be a good idea, but that’s a different subject.
Anglers test the ethics of catch and release every June when the sand eels arrive. This long, thin baitfish moves onto the flats, along the beaches, and into the coves in virtual abundance. Bass go on the feed in skinny water, but they don’t crush and swallow the baitfish headfirst like they do pogeys or buckeyes. Instead, they inhale the entire water column and the fish, purging water through their gills and swallowing the bait whole. Stripers constantly repeat this behavior because they not only get a meal, but they also get an incredible shot of oxygen before pursuing dessert.
Flyrodders catch these bass by mimicking the bait with small patterns. Unfortunately, stripers suck in the flies with such force the hooks frequently stick in the fish’s gills (and it happens a lot with small, top-water patterns). The fish bleeds, no matter how carefully an angler extracts a hook and releases the fish, and fish frequently turn belly up.
In this instance, the legal law is quite different from moral and ethical law, because a conflict stems from releasing a sub-legal fish knowing it’s going to die. Releasing a mortally wounded fish, particularly those that make such excellent table fare, makes about as much sense as socks on a rooster, but by doing so, we follow Johnny Law’s rules. There is some comfort knowing the crabs, eels, and lobsters feast well that night, but the real question is, can we find a balance between the legal law and an ethical law? Is there a catch-and-release middle ground?
The Swiss took a stab at this very dilemma. They decided that fighting and releasing fish was torturous and immoral. So, beginning in 2009, the law required anglers to properly dispatch any Swiss fish caught. In addition, the law set specific limits by species, and if someone reached the bar for a particular species game over, pack up and go home.
This year, Canada took a different approach when responding to poor Atlantic salmon return rates. In order to improve egg deposition in the Northwest Miramichi and Little Southwest Miramichi rivers, the lower portion of the Little River and up to and including Catamaran Brook and all tributaries on the system became mandatory catch-and-release until July 31st, for the next three seasons. I wonder if the netters at the mouth of the river have any thoughts on the subject?
Conservation is critical to our way of fishing. While A River Runs Through It increased fly-fishing participation, conservation created the initial wave of interest several years earlier. In the 1980s, blackened redfish was on the menu from five-star gourmet affairs to fish shacks. Coastal Conservation Association (CCA) efforts in Florida resulted in the restoration of the species. The same holds true for striped bass along the Eastern Seaboard. Some fish die upon release, but all fish die when we don’t.
Many outstanding U.S. fisheries developed from contaminated watersheds. Some of the best trout fishing in the Northeast is on catch-and-release stretches, and these stretches were previously closed due to high levels of mercury and PCBs deposited by upstream factories. Mandatory catch and release works for increasing fish stocks, but plan on burgers for dinner.
When Peter Harrison caught a world-record steelhead on Feb. 20, 2009 onWashingtonState’sHohRiver, the certified weight was 29.5 pounds. He dispatched the fish in keeping with the state’s one-fish law. A year and a half later, on June 25, 2010, someone caught a state-record steelhead in Ohio. Jason “J.W.” Brooks’ 21.3-pound Lake Erie fish edged out the previous state record by a third of a pound, and he also dispatched the fish, legally. Harrison took more grief from the masses over killing his fish, while Brooks became a hero. Jim Holland, Jr.’s 2001 world-record 202.5-pound tarpon and the accompanying photo of the behemoth hanging from a scale on a tree brought a similarly mixed message to his doorstep. And with dwindling brood stocks of the biggest, most-thriving specimens in clear decline among native steelhead and striped bass populations, it’s not hard to see why.
Are catch-and-keep anglers heroes or villains? Depends which side of the argument you’re on. Some anglers are proud they “haven’t killed a fish in 20 years.” Others aren’t afraid to put a meal on the table.
Most fishermen want legendary encounters, and the fish caught by Harrison, Brooks, and Holland, Jr., provided an out-of-body experience. By keeping their catch, I hope they can savor the moment time and time again. Maybe that’s what we need to draw more blood into this sport’s dwindling ranks. Maybe loosening up our thinking would lead to more out-of-body fishing experiences.
Fellow anglers who keep fish aren’t the sole problem. Commercial fishermen aren’t the sole problem, either. Maybe the blame for decreasing fish stocks rests on the refrigerator/freezer that decommissioned the 1900s salt works and canneries and made fish preservation universal. Perhaps the solution is to return to the traditional Native American ethic of “harvest only what you can eat.” If we didn’t have freezers to fill, wouldn’t the problem solve itself? There would be no need for catch and release, and there would be no need for slot or size limits on striped bass. What we would have is a self-regulating system that follows natural order.
Catch and release makes us feel good about helping our fisheries. That said, many of us like to eat fish, and when we catch a particularly big one, we might want to hang it on the wall. “Limit your kill, don’t kill your limit” seems about right. It’s close enough to the Native American attitude to work. Maybe this is the middle ground that will help us get done with the fightin’ and get on with the fishin’. The fishin’ is a lot more fun.