None of the catch and release threads seem to ask the fundamental question - when is a fish caught?

Is it when the fish can't get away - i.e. in the net, or when you decide to let the fish go?

And where is the satisfaction in the activity - the take, the play - the view/photo - the swimming away?

only one choice or it would be just "catch"

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WHEN YOU LEAVE THE RIVER, TAKE NOTHING, AND LEAVE ONLY FOOTPRINT'S!!!

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If it's in a competition, the fish is deemed caught, when it is recorded on the catch report according to the rules, and released. For the average angler, it doesn't really matter as to what qualifies a catch, but to me, it's a catch when the angler is satisfied with the experience.

Excellent response.
-A.

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I would say when you have played it to the side of a bank or boat and are able to deliberately take the hook out of the fish and let it go when you choose.This way it can be in the water or in a net.

Any fish lost whilst playing it was not truely caught but hooked for a short time.

BK

Liking that comment andreb, now quit talking sense please this is the FFF!

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The 'take'. Always the 'take'

As for the rest... well strangely, these days I always seem to experience what might best be described as a form of piscatorial post-coital dysphoria

I have been known to practice the long distance release technique on more than one occasion

Plumpy

You are trying, for the most part of your angling experience, to fool a fish into accepting an artificial fly as the real thing. I'm happy if I rise a fish, hit or miss. At least I then know that the fish are interested in the flies I've tied. Playing them is man against animal. If the animal wins, then so be it, that's sporting.

I think there is far too much emphasis played out on trying to beat the sporting odds.

Personally, I have to have Dominion over the fish for me to feel I can count it as caught.

richard

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Who resides on the right bank of the Derbyshire Wye and is lulled to sleep each night by the mutterings of a weir, dreaming that "When the rivers and their inhabitants come first, we ALL win..."