Difference In Fishing And Hunting Question

[jjtroutbum]

I believe the C&R of hunting is done with a tranquilizer dart. Many a rhino has been dropped only after pictures and measurements to get up slightly hung over and run away.

[Al Agnew]

Actually, while nearly all of us not only have no problem with trophy hunting but would be very happy to kill a Pope and Young or Boone and Crocket buck, there ARE valid reasons not to kill the big trophy bucks all the time. It's just that making a rule to not shoot the biggest bucks would never fly. But in a "natural" population of big game, instead of the decidedly unnatural situations (food plots, vitamin blocks, managing strictly for trophy bucks, etc.) where most big whitetails are killed these days, continually killing the bucks that grow the biggest antlers theoretically would lead to more inferior bucks passing on their inferior genes in the population and a gradual decline of big bucks.

Since it IS possible to catch and release trophy fish, like I said in the other thread, a big fish swimming is more valuable to more people than a dead one on the wall. And there's the possible added bonus of that fish continuing to pass on its grow-big genes. Of course, if we're talking about that big brown trout on Taney, that bonus doesn't apply, which is another reason why it might be more important to release a native fish from a self-reproducing population like a smallmouth than it would be a stocked trout.

In my opinion, there is what's legal, and there is what YOUR ethics dictate. Just because it's legal doesn't necessarily make it right. It's legal to kill a limit of 6 smallmouth on most little creeks. But if a dozen anglers fished the same 5 mile section of one of those creeks a dozen times each and killed a limit of smallies every time, that would pretty well wipe out the adult smallie population in that creek. Yet any one of those anglers would not only be legal, but if they were of a mind to kill a limit anyway, they obviously wouldn't have any ethical problem with it. Personally, when it comes to small creeks, I not only release all the fish I catch, but I limit my trips to any one section of a creek to no more than two or maybe three a year, since even catch and release fishing will kill a few fish. That's the ethics I feel comfortable with, and it comes with knowing enough about the population dynamics of that creek that I know it can't take a whole lot of fishing pressure and surely not a whole lot of catch and keep pressure.

So...I guess my point is that I believe that, with the starting point of what's legal, the ethical angler then makes an INFORMED decision on how many fish they will kill. And...sometimes that informed decision will be that they should kill fish. Again in my opinion, it is sometimes as unethical to NOT kill fish as it is in other situations to kill them. I fish a couple of rather large private lakes that absolutely NEED more bass killed. I also kill every spotted bass I legally can in the streams where they are taking over from the native smallmouth. If it was shown (and I believe it might) that a slot limit on smallies would benefit the population on a given stream, I wouldn't hesitate to kill a few smallies under the slot.

On the other hand, trout in most places in Missouri is such an artificial situation that I basically make my decision to not kill trout based upon the fact that I don't much care for the taste of them and it's too inconvenient to keep and clean them. However, I fished Mill Creek a while back, and using small dry flies, I was catching little 4-7 inch naturally reproduced McCloud rainbows by the dozens, and after an hour or so of that, I realized that I was probably killing a few of those little fish, and they were too valuable to kill, so I switched to a bigger streamer that the little ones wouldn't take. Didn't catch any bigger fish, but that was okay.

In a perfect world, the conservation department would set limits based purely on what was best for the body of water, and with perfect understanding of how many anglers would be taking advantage of those limits. Then, all any of us would have to do is follow the law. But we all know it isn't a perfect world. Limits aren't always set based strictly on what's biologically best. They aren't always followed, both by poachers keeping over the limit and the many but not easily quantified anglers who don't keep anything whether they should or not. So I think it's up to us to learn all we can about the waters we fish, and make our decisions on whether or not to keep fish based on what WE think is best for those waters.

[Chief Grey Bear]

In my opinion, there is what's legal, and there is what YOUR ethics dictate. Just because it's legal doesn't necessarily make it right. It's legal to kill a limit of 6 smallmouth on most little creeks. Yet any one of those anglers would not only be legal, but if they were of a mind to kill a limit anyway, they obviously wouldn't have any ethical problem with it.

I also kill every spotted bass I legally can in the streams where they are taking over from the native smallmouth.

MMMMMM. Ethics.

[ColdWaterFshr]

The line between hunting and fishing is getting blurrier all the time. Check this disturbing clip out:

http://troutunderground.com/

[mosouthpaw]

Lee Wulff was talking/promoting C&R long before Ray Scott thought about C&R. Ray Scott is far from a "father" of C&R. But his former BASS is a good promoter of C&R.

Bow vs rifle is an interesting angle... Both groups have different governing bodies of record books. Pope and Young for bow and Boone and Crockett for rifle. each have different criteria for animal judging. Debates will long fill the hunting lodge as to which is a better method.

All records are scrutinized, going so far as having a DNA check to make sure its not a frankendeer or some pen raised genetic mutation that has been exploited. Hunters have raised does and injected them with hormones to produce antlers. Pen raised deer raised for the racks hunted in a pens no bigger than an acre with open gates guarded by the farmers to prevent escape to qualify for a fair-chase rule.... Trust me the hunting world is full of scrutiny if you look beyond the Primos, Mossy Oak and Realtree smoke and mirrors.

[fly2fish]

I have no problem of people keeping any legal fish caught by any legal means. What gets under my skin is seeing people bait fishing releasing fish that go belly up as soon as they hit the water. One day I was at Phils place getting ready to go out with Thom and was waiting on Leonard to show up when a guy started using power bait and caught a rainbow within about 2 minutes and ask to borrow my hemostats and I let him only to see him rip the hook out of its gut and throw it back and start fishing again. In the next 15 minutes or so he caught 3 more only to kill and release, no telling how many more fish died after we left. I know it probably wasn't as many as a heron would eat in a day (I think we've been down this road before).

My question is why fish a method, with no intentions of keeping the fish, that is going to kill it the majority of the time.

F2F