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Old March 21st, 2008, 07:51 PM posted to alt.flyfishing
Halfordian Golfer
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Posts: 551
Default Fishery Management was Catch and Release Hurts our Quality ofLife

On Mar 21, 1:15 pm, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:
Halfordian Golfer wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
No, the accidental killing of fish is not to feed the bugs
it is an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of fishing.
Happens in nature all the time.


My wife and I were camped at a backcountry campsite on Slough
Creek in Yellowstone. Slough Creek is by biological necessity
pure C&R. A big cutt swallowed my hopper and was practically
dead before I ever brought him to hand. I was reluctant to put
that dead fish back in the water because of the bear danger
but that was the only legal thing to do so it was done. Now if
you had caught that fish, decided to stick it in the pan and
eat it rather than "waste" it how would you explain *that* to
the ranger ?


Ken you said: "No, the accidental killing of fish is not to feed the
bugs it is an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of fishing.
Happens in nature all the time."


Really? In nature, how many animals stress, maim and kill other
animals purely for sport.


How many ? I don't know but I have personally watched a couple
of juvenile wolves chase and kill a young elk just for ****s
and grins. They couldn't have been hungry, they had just woke
up after sleeping off their portions of a big kill, and the
rest of the pack was still sleeping. They made no attempt to
eat their kill but left it on the valley floor for the coyotes
and birds. Perhaps they were practicing hunting techniques ?
I've not witnessed it myself but I've read that killer whales
will sometimes toss their prey around like volleyballs until
the prey is dead and then just leave it.

But having said that I added that sentence mainly so you'd
recognize your own words.

--
Ken Fortenberry


You are close to the one answer that I feel can justify extremely
limited pure C&R, that of man's honing of essential hunting skills for
the real thing. This is what these animals are doing. If the killer
whale threw the seal 30 feet out of the water and then got in his Saab
and drove to Sushi Den for dinner, I'd think your comparison was
reasonable. But it's not, the killer whale shows no compassion and the
seal assumes it will be killed. It is not sport.

Other than that, there are still several other unfortunate problems
with your analogy.

In addition to blatant anthropomorphizing about the wolf and killer
whale's intent and "enjoyment" in the kill, you have degraded the
human species to that level and, inadvertently, I'm sure, compared C&R
fishing to the acts of wolfish barbarism.

Halfordian Golfer