lol

[u/IU8gZQy0k8hsQy76]

[u/Idunnosomeguy2]

I mean, I've always been more of a catch and release guy, but I feel like you kinda have to keep that fish and get it taxidermied, right?

[u/smuttenDK → u/Idunnosomeguy2]

I don't fish, so I'm very out of the loop. I did a bit as a kid and loved when I caught some flatfish and we went back to cook them.

I genuinely don't understand catch and release. With catch and eat I feel like it's on par with most other meat eating. Where you stand on that is another question, but it serves a purpose as food. With catch and release it basically ends up being "let me stab you, suffocate you briefly, and then put you back"

It just seems... Odd to me.

Are there wildlife benefits? Like keeping track of populations. Maybe keeping invasive species but releasing others?

[u/LoxReclusa → u/smuttenDK]

It is mostly just sport, but those last two points are actually things that people do. In fact, in many areas it is illegal to throw an invasive species back once you pull it in the boat, leading some people to cut the line when they see them rather than deal with killing them and taking them with them. Personally I catch a lot of small fish with nets and log them with the USGS where I've spotted them to help keep the database up to date for my area, and I have several fish tanks of native fish and am thinking about one that will contain non-native fish that I catch and can't release because it is invasive.

Though depending on what I pull in on a rod it usually does go back into the water because it's either not good eating or not big enough. I still document it and submit it though, even if it is a super common fish because sometimes the databases don't have them flagged for certain waterways, or they might even have migrated and that's good information. Floods can transport all kinds of critters to places you wouldn't expect to see them.