how to deal with large catch?

[bwana]

Isn't fishing a form of hunting? What makes one better morally than the other?

You can always stalk your game and purposely miss the shot or take a photo if that makes you feel more complete.

Then go to the store and buy your meat laying on a maxipad wrapped in cellophane with a date stamp.

As I get older I "feel" for the animal's/fish's lost life. To honor that animal I only take a clean shot, butcher everything myself and don't waste it.

At least a yellowtail doesn't let out a long protracted death moan like a bear does in its final moment. Talk about a sad sound.

You want to talk about contemplating ones mortality... our sport can be dangerous. I have felt relief on mutliple occassions finally
making the harbor when things turned rough or the fog/lightning rolled in quickly and unexpectedly. I'm sure we all have stories
of stupid boaters, sharks, big bull sea lions. Hell I almost got killed by a bonita (my friends all know that story).

I too release my bait at day's end.

[Mr. NiceGuy]

Originally Posted by bwana

Isn't fishing a form of hunting? What makes one better morally than the other?

You can always stalk your game and purposely miss the shot or take a photo if that makes you feel more complete.

Then go to the store and buy your meat laying on a maxipad wrapped in cellophane with a date stamp.

As I get older I "feel" for the animal's/fish's lost life. To honor that animal I only take a clean shot, butcher everything myself and don't waste it.

At least a yellowtail doesn't let out a long protracted death moan like a bear does in its final moment. Talk about a sad sound.

You want to talk about contemplating ones mortality... our sport can be dangerous. I have felt relief on mutliple occassions finally
making the harbor when things turned rough or the fog/lightning rolled in quickly and unexpectedly. I'm sure we all have stories
of stupid boaters, sharks, big bull sea lions. Hell I almost got killed by a bonita (my friends all know that story).

I too release my bait at day's end.

He may have been referring to "catch & release" as not killing. It's a little harder to release a deer after it's shot.

I'm not a catch & release guy. I'm a catch and eat guy. I try to make use of everything I can render from a life I've taken. Yellowtail collars are amazingly delicious, and I try not to worry too much when I see them wasted by others.

If we are going to kill and eat, it's all the same, right? Morally, I think we are designed by nature to be omnivores, right? Nature itself can be ruthlessly brutal and amoral. Morals may be a human societal thing.

Prudent respect and management of natural resources makes sense to me too. Sometimes there's a problem with pests that need to be eliminated. Sometimes people are the pests.

Without morals and natural resource management, it defaults to Darwinism and natural selection. Right? When we paddle out into the ocean on a flimsy piece of plastic, we become part of the food chain.

All that philosophical stuff makes me really thirsty for a cold beer.