Depends

Depends

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
It depends on who you talk to. I have heard both sides of the story from experts. When it comes to catch and release of what I will term fragile fish, as in trout or steelhead, Tim Higham, an associate professor in UCR's Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, told me some very convincing facts about how hooking these fish results in a tear in my mouth which produces a biomechanical inability for them to feed efficiently resulting in their starvation upon releasing back into the water. Then I pick up the paper the other day and learn about a study by the Idaho department of Fish and game along with University of Idaho researchers that reports something way different. Here is Idaho Fish and Game public information supervisor Roger Phillips talking about some biologists who tried to simulate private anglers: "They pretty much went and mimicked anglers as those fish were coming up to spawn. They basically caught them on rod and reel and kind of mimicked how an angler would catch and release a fish and tag those fish and then went up and saw how successfully they spawn whether they survived and also how their offspring did. And the results were pretty positive as in that there wasn't any difference between or no discernable difference between survival and reproduction rates of the fish that were caught and released and the ones that were not."
Previous ReportPreserving Steelhead
Next ReportBear Bait