By Tyler Justice Allen – Rajeff Sports / Photos by David McCoy
(Originally published in Tail #28 March 2017)
Fishing careers can take any trajectory. Some are humble, like the DIY walk-and-wade angler who spends his day criticizing the sun’s rays. Others are replete with motherships and attorney-client privilege. Most fall somewhere in between.
In the end, our path is inconsequential to our time on the water. Fish don’t know who we are or where we come from. They don’t care whether we have a fishing rod or a fishing pole. We’re the shadow from above, the home intruder. To a fish, we’re all equal.
Anglers don’t share the fish’s sense of inherent equality. Around the water cooler, we act as judge and jury for those who choose to fish in a different manner than we’ve chosen for ourselves. We put the screws to any angler assumed guilty of the tiniest infraction. Mistakes are assigned intention. A hashtag becomes traitorous. A photo, a call to war.
It usually starts with the best intentions. “Get that thing back in the water!” commenters say. “You’re hurting the fish,” they say. Yes, some popular fishing practices are detrimental to both fish and angler. So is condescension. Judgement can grow into resentment for those targeted, resentment into spite. And spiteful fishing is rarely fun.
On the flip side, social media outlets have offered the opportunity for individuals, not just formal organizations, to popularize sustainable fishing practices. Initiatives like ‘Keep ’em Wet’ and ‘Fish Need Water’ have allowed folks to show their support for properly handled fish in a public forum. Users have assumed the hashtags #keepemwet and #fishneedwater as badges of pride, testaments to their effort to apply fishing techniques that reduce the death rate of released fish. It’s instant pro-fish publicity.
Steering anglers towards fishing practices that reduce post-catch mortality is a delicate balancing act with conservation on one side and old habits on the other. Reconciling the need to protect sport fish populations with each angler’s desire to fish as they please is the tallest hurdle faced by conservation organizations that focus on sport fish advocacy. From a sportman’s standpoint, it’s better to nudge anglers rather than push. We’re an ornery bunch and usually don’t take kindly to being told what to do. Accepting this fact is helpful in getting any message across to the angling public. We’re stubborn, but also fiercely loyal to our sport and what it represents. Show us why caring is important to the health and longevity of sport fishing and change will be realized.
The hard-to-swallow truth is this: the survival of our sport depends, to a large degree, on the practices of individual anglers. What you do on the water matters to each person that wets a line in that fishery, both now and in the future. Understanding appropriate times to harvest, recognizing the impact of our tackle choices, and considering our handling practices are basic responsibilities; each one of these tasks can be directly correlated to the number of fish available to catch. Government-issued fishing regulations often cover these responsibilities and spell out what’s required of each angler to minimally comply. Mandated regulations often lag several years behind the best available science, however, and may be compromised by politics. In the end, the onus is on each of us to stay informed and protect the fish that define our sport every time a line pulls tight.
Each angler’s rationale for reconsidering the impact of their personal fishing practices is typically a combination of intimate values and cold pragmatism—the ‘fuzzy-wuzzies’ tempered by the bottom line. Species preservation often tops the list of angler’s reasons to care (you can’t catch fish that aren’t there), but the dollars driven by stable, available sport fish populations can’t be forgotten. Sport fishing is an economic powerhouse, contributing an outsized impact on local economies where angling is prevalent; Islamorada, Punta Allen, and Christmas Island are all shining examples. Fewer fish would mean lost dollars and fewer jobs in these and similar areas.
Writ large, our sport is a dollar-generating monster: in 2011, American sport fishing generated $10 billion more revenue than Google. Let that sink in for a second and consider that each fishing trip requires significant purchases from a variety of economic sectors, some made multiple times. Gas needs to be purchased for both boat and rig, food needs to be bought, rooms need to be booked, tackle needs to be acquired. All in all, anglers seem to hemorrhage money. Could you imagine what would happen to Islamorada if anglers stopped coming? Would the local economy survive? Hopefully we’ll never have to answer that question.
Where fish are, jobs follow. Sport fishing supported 828,000 American jobs and generated $115 billion in revenue in 2013. You say, “we need jobs!” I say, “go fishing!” Without stable, available populations, the jobs and money would dry up. Would folks spend thousands of dollars to fly to Christmas Island if they only expected to land one or two fish? Most wouldn’t. It’s a sheer numbers game: more fish equal more money. The best way to help fish populations as an angler? Support the groups that are working to protect the fisheries, and use lower-impact equipment and responsible fishing practices. If you plan on releasing a fish anyway, why not help ensure its wellbeing? As Lee Wulff said, “game fish are too valuable to be caught only once.”
Nothing is guaranteed, especially in the angling world. A fish that is released may not survive, and a fish above water may not die. Let’s educate ourselves for the future’s sake. Let’s support other anglers, not alienate them. If we want sport fishing to thrive, we can’t avoid the conversation.
