William Claspy wrote:
(I've snipped liberally for brevity's sake)
On 8/1/06 11:20 AM, in article , "JR"
wrote:
These questions can
never be resolved and are pointless anyway.
Yet you seem to resolve it pretty neatly for yourself (see your next
sentence).
Yeah. The part I can never understand is why all the rest of the world
resist letting me resolve it for them as well....
Your inclusion of "mandatory" has me scratching my head a little, and I'm
wondering if you would explain. Would the "playthings" statement change if
the C&R were *not* mandatory. So if I'm fishing on a no-regs stream, and
release a fish, was the fish not a plaything at my whim? Are the fish that
you caught and release that were not part of your slot limit (were there a
highly restrictive slot limit) not playthings, whereas they would have been
had the C&R been mandated by some outside (outside of your own conscience!)
agency?
I think that if a fish is caught and released in the process of fishing
for food, that fact does not *necessarily* make the fish a plaything in
the sense I'm using the word. I think it's when a regulatory body and
oneself decide beforehand that any fishing you do this day on this water
*must* be only for fun that the water you're fishing is necessarily
reduced to a state where it can be nothing other than a playground and
the fish nothing other than playthings.
(To be honest, I don't follow the discussion closely enough to know the
definition of "slot limit"- is that where you can only keep the first (say)
two fish you catch? Or is it when you can only keep fish of a certain
size?)
A slot limit is where you can keep a given number of fish in a size
"slot", i.e., *between* a minimum and a maximum length, for example
between 8" and 12". Most successful ones serve to cull only pan-sized
trout and tend to have less negative effects on a population than
"trophy" limits (a given number of fish *over* a certain size).
I'd be interested in hearing your own- that is, your personal!- reasons for
participating in sport fishing, JR. How do you justify the C&R that you do?
Assuming you at least occasionally C&R, that is!
I meant to respond to this in detail but have exhausted myself in
replying to others. I fish in part because I've done it since early
childhood, in part to take an active part in the doings of the natural
world, in part for food, in part (I admit it) because it *is* fun. I
release many many more fish than I keep. (See my reply to jeff about
being a hypocrite.) Ah, the humanity..... g
- JR