hi all .ive been fly fishing for around a year now and love it ... .now here goes probably been mentioned b4 but here goes.i dont eat trout myself i go to a catch and release fishery quite alot.my question is why do alot of fisheries strictly catch and keep is it to keep a recording of whats in the lakes condition of fish quality i have spoke to a few fellow anglers who all have there opinions..alot of anglers go to catch and release and i believe if the fish are brought to the bank quick as possible and released asap they are fine.whats different from say course fishing after a match of say 100lb of carp what would happen to the angler if he started whacking them with a priest .he be would be shot ..ive been carpfishing for 30 years and have caught carpupto 50lb and whats the difference on releasing a trout or a carp.i look forward to hearing peoples comments,thanks for reading Graham

You're right, the subject has been 'done to death' on this forum many times, using the 'Search' facility would show you that ... but irrespective, it will probably continue to be 'debated' ad infinitum.

The nub of your question - what's the difference between releasing a carp and a trout?

You have to appreciate that there are differences in their metabolic rates. The rainbow trout we fish for originate from the cold water Shasta and Irideus strains, they've evolved from cool, cold streams. Obviously, our 'inbred' rainbows are a long way from their ancestors but they still maintain the same biological traits. Part of their attraction is that rainbows fight hard but their recovery can be compromised in warmer water conditions - much more so than what are now considered native coarse fish like carp. There is, despite various claims, no verifyable data to let us know the survival rates of returned rainbows in 'commercial' fisheries.

Why do some fisheries insist on cathch and kill? To keep a tab on stock levels - 20 out in a day? 20 in the next day. If you don't like these 'rules', vote with your feet - don't go there.

Catch and release? As far as rainbows in stocked fisheries are concerned I really don't care. They're the equivalent of pheasants on a driven shoot, they're there to be shot at. However, I abhore the practice of catching, killing and 'dumping' whether fish or fowl. There is no excuse for not treating any creature with respect whether it's to be eaten or returned.

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[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

Catch and release? As far as rainbows in stocked fisheries are concerned I really don't care. They're the equivalent of pheasants on a driven shoot, they're there to be shot at. However, I abhore the practice of catching, killing and 'dumping' whether fish or fowl. There is no excuse for not treating any creature with respect whether it's to be eaten or returned.

Well said!

It's to keep the fish "dumb" and the punters coming back.

i get all that but there is only so much trout 1 wants and i love going fishing

?

Well keep what you want and put the rest back if it's within the rules

Alternatively, find somewhere where the rules are different.

__________________
[I]"I still don't know why I fish or why other men fish, except that we like it and it makes us think and feel."[/I] Roderick L Haig-Brown

[url]www.wildfly.net[/url]

[url]http://www.gameanglinginstructors.co.uk/[/url]

Catch and Release, despite all the soul-searching and moralising, is adopted by fishery owners who wish to maximise their profits by not having to restock.

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How poor a thing, sometimes I find,
Will captivate a greedy mind - Isaac Walton.

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See Non-Migratory Fish - SANA Ltd for SANA's view on dumping fish.

I don't like killing more fish than I can eat, and I don't like eating fish that have been frozen, so I limit my trips to waters where all fish must be kept to three or four times a year. Living as I do in the south-east and not being a millionaire, this means I don't fly fish much! There are a few waters near me that offer catch and release, and from experience on these waters I am now of the opinion that rainbow trout should not be released, as they seem to go back in condition and become thin and listless. Whether this is because they don't recover quickly and avoid feeding for a while after capture, or because they can't find adequate food in the first place, I cannot say. Certainly some of the waters I fish are so over-stocked the fish could not survive for long even if no-one fished for them.

This overstocking is not a problem if the fish are quickly caught, killed and replaced with fresh, well-fed fish, in the same way you could keep a hundred steers in a one acre field for a couple of days as long as you then take them away and kill them (or put them in a bigger field) and put new ones in there. Catch and kill waters function as a business by putting a lot of pretty stupid trout into a water (in some cases a very small amount of water) charging anglers to come along, catch them and take them away, and replacing them with more trout. By putting in a big one for every hundred or so regular fish, the angler has the chance of getting a big one, either by luck or by searching diligently until he finds it, without the expense of stocking only with big fish.

It works, it fulfills a need and takes some of the pressure off the wild trout stocks. In reservoirs it works very well, as the fish have time and space to spread out and settle into a semi-natural existence, but the small waters ain't my cup of tea any more. I find the whole business quite depressing and futile - like shooting pheasants in a squash court.

What I'd like to see created is a fishery stocked only with brown trout - which seem able to survive being caught much better than rainbows, and are quicker to utilise whatever natural food is available - at a density the water can support long-term without artificial supplements. The water would be managed to maximise natural food yield, with plenty of weed to encourage natural fly, populations of sticklebacks and so forth. It would have a mandatory closed season between the beginning of November and the end of March, and would provide a decent challenge to those tired of the regular small water 'sport' who cannot access or afford decent river fishing. However, I suspect such a fishery would not be commercially viable.

I preferentially choose catch and release waters unless I specifically want trout to eat (in which case I tend to fish the catch and kill side at Farmoor, delicious trout). Don't see the point in killing an animal if eating it is a chore.