Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Catch and release?

Recent annual AK fishing trip. 850 pounds of filets between 8 guys.

AK is for putting fish in the freezer, don't keep many locally in Wyoming.

Being a commercial fisherman I don't release anything that I can sell or eat. Usually I catch a mess of small bass for supper every few weeks when I'm home.

Crappie or yellow bass get filleted, if I don't have any of those smallmouth are next in line, last to be kept if no other fish are smaller largemouth. I don't eat cats or trout.

Kent

All I fish for is crappie.
Every legal fish get fileted.

Depends on the water I’m fishing and species I’m catching. I kept a walleye from a local pond last night, but don’t eat bass at all so I let ‘em go.

Rivers are historic dumping grounds for cancer causing agents so I’m careful what I keep from them.

I thought this thread was about flaves mom.

Wasn’t consuela a catch and release by the border patrol?

She not from Nicaragua.

LOL

Catch and release. Why go fishing? I do throw back the real big ones and the whole fryers but the rest go in the freezer.

Depends on the day.

Keep more that come through the ice than those that come from open water.

Try not to be a pig about it like some folks with limits from 2006 in the freezer still cutting up everything that comes over the gunwale.




Green carp get punted onto shore, obviously. The ultimate C&R.

In late March and all of April, if I didn’t catch and release, I would be putting the boat back on the trailer in 30 mins or less.

I set a length goal for crappie and then fish until I have finished my limit for the day.

I will keep every spotted bass I catch that’s legal and occasionally a large mouth. Small mouth get a pass and are released immediately.

Trout, bass, catfish, and musky all get released.

All walleye, perch, and crappie of reasonable size go for a ride in my boat.

Seems like the only places where folks eat bass and catfish are places where there aren't walleye...

Fishing exclusively at Lake Fork for the last 5 years I have not come across a bass, big or small, that has given it up and jumped in my boat. But a couple of tournaments ago I did hear about one 8+ that did (give it up that is).

In overfished environments (like maybe Fishing Bridge in Yellowstone) the place would be cleaned out in short order by a retained fishery. Read a study once suggesting fish in that region were caught about 9 times over a summer. Same issue below Navajo Dam on the San Juan.

Don't personally keep much in fresh water that's under 24 inches, but do retain some hatchery steelhead/salmon if I'll be heading home in a day or so.

Moving on to women: best to release them all.

I commercial fish for panfish here on Lake Champlain. Everything legal to sell goes on ice.

If they are big enough to fillet, I’m a catch and eat kind of guy.

Me too, except bigger blue cat, they go back, too much red and fat to trim. Let them raise more.

90 % of my fishing is trout in high mountain lakes.
I enjoy the scenery clean air and fishing with ultra lights.

My goal is to catch and release everything.

Saltwater is a different story.

Fishing Alaska ruined me.
I would just as soon have a catch box full of Pacific cod as any halibut, rock fish or ling!
Last time out on Kodiak, we got into the kings and silvers every day.
I won't turn down salmon even though it's not my favorite to eat.

Down here in Okieland, I won't fish for anything but crappie now. Thankfully, I live about 3 miles from a great crappie fishery!

If I’m grocery shopping out there, it’s Catch and Release…into real hot grease. Most often it’s just sport fishing.