Catch and release problems
Running a
stillwater trout fishery is a dodgy business, especially if you have to buy the
stock fish instead of breeding and rearing them yourself.
Trying to keep enough trout in the water to enable novice anglers to have a chance
of a catch, so that they are likely to come again and buy another ticket another
day, without making it too easy for more experienced anglers is not easy to achieve
consistently.
There are occasions when, for various reasons, trout can be very easy indeed to
tempt on an artificial fly if you are a skilled angler.
Maybe the newly stocked fish are eagerly feeding where your chosen swim is for
instance.
I hate failing to catch a single fish, and I enjoy taking some home to eat, but
I know that catching and releasing dozens, sometimes scores of trout, does more
harm to the prospects of anglers who fish days later than killing a reasonable
number then stopping fishing does.
Some anglers say that they have paid for a day’s fishing and want to enjoy
a full day’s sport. This need not entail fishing frantically with almost
non-stop casting and a great number of fish landed.
You can catch a couple of fish towards your ‘limit’ bag before fishing
again with methods that are more enjoyable but less productive. Watching a dry
fly is an example of what I have in mind.
I do know that lots of anglers will not agree with me on this matter and I thought
differently during the first 50 or 60 years of my fly-fishing life.
I have seen for myself what a lot of harm it does to a fishery where the vast
majority of trout landed are unhooked and released with only a small number being
taken for the pot.
This can, after repeated catching and releasing, result in thin, sickly trout
swimming feebly around scared to eat even real live flies because they are traumatised.
For those reasons I am one of the comparatively rare anglers who like to fish
in waters where catch and release is not permitted and where you must kill your
daily limit then pack up.