Fishing vs. Hunting

[bettercallsaul]

(04-16-2012 12:39 AM)MuskieBait Wrote:  Hold on there...note the smiley face...it means that I'm kidding about the whole paintball thing...

I guess you missed my whole first part of the post about appreciating nature and just snapping pictures...

As anglers, we also have the choice to take the fish as part of the catch or release them. Let me see...you put a hook wound in a fish mouth, then letting it resist capture until exhaustion (with fish like tuna, they fight until lactic acid builds up), lift it out of the water to struggle to breath to the point of suffocation while people spend time to take some "hero shots", then releasing the at a weaken state that make the fish prone to predation and infection...that would also qualified as harassing wildlife, no?

Or maybe we should only go out and catch a couple of fish for the table then stop fishing all together? Who has ever done that honestly, especially on a day when the fish are on fire? Who has gone out and only kept 5 measly 6" perch for the table and left? Most people will be releasing a bunch of small perch all day just to try to catch a few jumbo ones. Why fish and catch and release if the intention all along was not to take the fish for the table, especially when people are out fishing for bass, steelhead or musky? Why put any fish under unnecessary stress at all?

Isn't that just as bad as running down a deer until exhaustion and not taking the kill shot? To me, it is just as bad if not worst. In catch and release fishing, you could go through tens of fish a day putting them through unnecessary stress, harassing wildlife in my mind. Why not just observe the damn fish?

I'm just playing devil's advocate...make you go hmmm, huh?

People don't seem to care as much about fish in our culture IMO. It's like the "vegetarians" who still eat fish. Fish have faces.