One of the questions that has frequently come up in the discourse on
pure catch and release (fishing solely for sport) versus fishing with
the primary goal to be food, especially natural food and complementary
exercise, is that there is mortality, stress and injury to the stock
of fish regardless of the initial goal. There is no such thing as zero
mortality.

It is a statement of fact that there is incidental mortality in the
commercial harvest of food that we all eat at the table. In some cases
this is extreme. For example long-lining and netting is know for
killing porpoise, turtles and other species not targetted by the
fisherman. Trawling and purse seining are completely indiscriminate,
not only catching and killing anything and everything unlucky enough
to be in the path, but also damaging the very ecosystem in which they
live. As a volunteer veteran of the US Coast Guard doing fisheries
patrols in the Bering, the extent of the damage by, especially, the
Japanese and Korean fishing fleets was immense. Still all of us who
consume seafood are guilty of this abuse. Trotlines, jugs and all
forms of baited hook offerings also kill, indiscriminately.

Enter the flyrod and spinning fisherman. With a rod, line and single
or double hook and with lures sized and selected specifically for the
target species, placed in the ecosystem niche favoring the targeted
species we not only minimize incidental by-catch, we also minimize
mortality in our efforts.

Thus it can be stated with no small degree of factuality that
flyfishing and fishing with barbed treble hooks on spinners and spoons
is the lowest impact of incidental damage to the fishery possible,
with the slight exception of spear fishing, which would not only
target the species but also the exact fish that is being harvested.

It is, put more simply and eloquently perhaps, the perfect tool for
the harvest of fish for the table.

Thoughts?

Halfordian Golfer
Guilt Replaced the Creel