It certainly does make you a poacher and it's sheer
nonsense to consider returning a dead fish to the water
a "crime".

This part of this thread was a mistake on my part.
I do that every now and then, due to chronic foot in mouth
disease. You've probably noticed that.

I was expressing a sentiment more than a way of actually doing
things. The last time I actually killed a fish I wasn' supposed to
was a large fish, that was at the edge of a slot limit anyway,
that was so badly gill hooked he was essentially dead before I
got him out of the net. There was blood all over hte place.
That was 4-5 years ago.

I was camping on the river that night. So I didn't throw a dead fish
back into the water. I put him tin foil
and baked him with garlic and oyster mushrooms.
And I felt thankful for nature's bounty, what little is left of it.