C&R -- Catch and Retain...

As the pressure on the trout fisheries increase, the need for restricting to some degree our "taking" becomes imperative. During the period prior to 1950, access to many of our wild trout waters was slow, difficult, and expensive. However, with the introduction of the Interstate Highway System, improvement of the secondary roads, increased logging due to the housing boom and Post-War prosperity, many streams, rivers, and ponds became readily accessible by the average fisherman, as well as the wealthy "sport". The Brook Trout streams of the northeastern United States couldn't sustain any longer a twenty-five fish daily limit, so it was lowered, in many cases to fifteen, then to ten, now to just five or two, depending on the health and resilience of the fishery.

Without going into the origins of "Catch and Release", its debatable ethos, its harm to the fish, its advancement of the fringe element of the Animal Rights movement, and the unnecessary suffering it inflicts upon the quarry, let's examine its usefulness. The fisheries biologists of most states find that Catch and Release is the plan of last resort for some heavily pounded fisheries, especially those trout streams open during spawning season through the political machinations of the Sport Fishing Industry. There are other methods of trout fisheries management that would be equally or more effective but lack the panache so necessary to marketing the sport.

One plan is quite simple. Close the river. Give it a fallow year or two and invest in stream improvements.

A far more palatable plan to the average fisherman, whether fly, plug, or bait, would be to have these streams all classified as strict C&R -- Catch and Retain. If the bag limit is three fish, the first three trout you catch you must kill immediately and then, having limited out, leave the river. This would teach people to be more discerning in spotting rises of larger fish. Those who don't like to kill fish wouldn't fish there -- just as some won't fish on Catch and Release water. There are underlying benefits of teaching fishermen an appreciation of the natural world, their place in the food chain, and "Not to play with your food". Anglers, knowing how easy it is to catch three brookies, would spend more time examining the river and the world around them rather than feverishly casting to score the greatest number of fish.

Let's give good ol' fashioned C&R -- Catch and Retain -- a chance.

© Reed F. Curry 2006