Catch & Release (videos)

The catch and release versus catch and keep controversy is volatile subject that can end in a thermonuclear cloud over your friendship if you're not careful. So what's forthright, honorable, and just? I'm not even going to pretend to know the complexities involved in maintaining a renewable conservation area, I just try to do my part by following the rules and keeping my back yard clean. But what if my freezer is empty...is it okay to keep a few in a sport riddled with passionate members that would sooner throw YOU into the lake than watch you keep a future five-pounder?

Last year, I was fishing a small lake that is used to water the fields in a sports complex. This is the same place that once gave me a 6 pound oinker that I would never in my life expect to catch in this place because I heard that the lake had nearly run dry in a recent drought. (never trust the grapevine) A confident young guy approached me and asked if I had been doing any good though I suspect he saw the little 19-incher I just threw back and wondered what I was using.

He started going off with choice expletives on how he saw an angler keeping a bass and that they should be offed in some torturous gangster manner. "If you're going to eat fish, eat a catfish. Bass are for sport only!" he boastfully exclaimed in a semi-hostile manner. He talked about how this hole once teemed with fat-daddies, but they're all gone now because the entire Midwest takes bass from it. (a little delusional)

I like the taste of bass. I like it more than most Midwestern freshwater fish, so do we need to throw every single green meanie back? Do we need to practice some form of catch and release? I think the answer to the controversy is "yes & no".

I had recently read an article defending the bass-eater that made sense to me and lay some of my own questions to rest with common sense. 

http://www.bassresource.com/fishing/catch_and_release_bass.html


Here's a release video I made up on my phone. It's fun, check it out. (I did keep the big 20# common carp)

https://youtu.be/SCmz4IFWbd8