There was a thread on the main board I think it was pulled because it turned into a guide bash. The topic however is an interesting one.
Properly releasing a fish. People where all outraged that a guide on a TV show was just chucking fish back and not reviving them or taking proper care of them. Seems to me that this is a real slippery slope for fisherman to take with each other. I am sure all the anti fisherman would say that hooking them and playing them does just as much if not more damage than just chucking them back carelessly. Then you have the people fishing with double hooks that gill hook , eyehook etc. wild fish that have to be released. Leading to the anti conlusiuon that if you never hooked them in the first then you would never have to release them. I think the wild fish issue will go that far in the near future and it seems we are pushing it in the Anti's direction because most people do not know how to release fish.

I don't see any problem with people holding other fisherman accoutable for good C&R practices. Should actually help the sport I think...

Think about gun control. Rebember the video of the 3yr old who grabbed his dads gun from the trunk of the car and played with it for a while with no supervision? Should sportsman just look away when they see obvious bad judgement by another sportsman? I think that attitude would leave a bigger black eye for the sport than standing up for good sportsman like practices.

I see your point but I cannot see a parallel in hunting. I do not think it's an ethics issue either. It's a risk abatement issue for wild fish. Risk abatement is attitive the more steps you take to reduce risk the less risk you have. So if the goal is to protect wild fish then it seems we have an arbitrary set of standards that says one risk is less than the other. That hypocrisy opens the door to the otherside saying catching the fish in the fist place puts the fish at more risk than trying to release it in the second place. So stop catching them to reduce risk to wild fish. I can think of no other example where you are even allowed to touch a protected spiecies,can you?

So what then do you suggest we do? Let every jerk out there who wants to drop kick the fish back in the water do so and just look the other way?

I think it is pretty simple. We as sportsman need to continually exam our sport's ethics and best practices, set some standards, be personally accountable, and do our part to ensure others don't tarnish our sport.

If reasonable measures are taken to ensure fish are not mortally hooked and\or played to death, and carefully revived\released - that is all we can ask for. If that is not good enough to protect the 'by catch' of protected fish, then they probably should shut it down to all fishing. (Those reasonable measures may include laws not allowing bait, barbless hooks, etc, as well as sportsman setting their own standards like not fishing\wading over redds, etc)

PP,

I don't think you will stop it from happening unless you ban catch and release. But from my expirience gettting rid of bait and barbed hooks changes the dynamic of the fishery a bit. I am just waiting for the anti's to jump on the hypocrisy.

Of course it won't stop. Just like snagging won't ever stop. But with more pressure from peers and better (more clear) regulations combined with better enforcement - it can be cut way back.

Look at the bad press that guide company got. Think they'll do that again on TV (if the even get the chance)? People do change. I did a lot of things as a kid because I just didn't know better or just didn't understand the impact and didn't really care. As I learned more about fishing, fish habit, fish biology, etc - I became a much better steward of the enviroment.

I really don't care what the 'antis' think. I doubt they'll bother to distinguish between catch and kill and C&R anyway. "fishing is bad" is the message - not C&R is bad.

"I really don't care what the 'antis' think"

Great point BTW