David H. Lipman wrote:

That's weird. I practice Catch & Release most of the time.
I can't imagine the idea of being forced to take home fish that I won't eat.
If I am not going to eat it, I want the fish to live.

Much of Europe forces anglers to kill whatever they catch because the
supposed "animal rights" groups pressured the government to enact such
rules.

If you catch a tiny fish, too small to eat, you're forced to kill it.
If you catch an endangered speices, you're forced to kill it.
If you catch an inedible species, you're forced to kill it.

It shows how messed up the "animal rights" people are when they FORCE
anglers to KILL fish that could be released unharmed.

I encourage Europeans to have the fish slip out of their hands and get
away "accidentally".

In the USA, PETA and HSUS are trying to get catch and release fishing
outlawed. Some meathogs (usually in Yankee states) try to exploit this
to rationalize their meathogging (In-Fisherman).

An infamous enemy of catch-and-release fishing is Scott Adams, who
described it as "torture" in an awful Dilbert strip. Adams is
obviously a sissy dork who has never set foot outside a cubicle. He
portrayed the evil pointy-haired boss as the catch and release
fisherman, portraying fishing as bad. He uses his Dilbert strip not to
be funny, but to advance his far-left agenda (anti-fishing, vegetarian,
feminist, etc). In the typical hypocrisy of a vegan, Scott Adams
causes entire ecosystems to be destroyed as wetlands are drained and
forests are clearcut to grow the crops for his vegan lifestyle.
Fishermen and hunters selectively harvest individual animals as natural
predators, not damaging the ecosystem. Successful fishermen catch many
more fish than they could consume, so they _have_ to release the vast
majority of their fish or else they'd quit fishing within an hour of
each trip.


Regarding the original question, I get approached by the game warden
here in the USA about once a year, sometimes never in a year, sometimes
two or three times. The miles of stream / lake shoreline per game
warden is huge, so they're rare.