(POLL) Do you catch and release or keep fish?

[Crestliner2008]

My boat has been and always will be CPR.

[22RangerZ520R]

CPR on my boat...

[FishDewd]

Ya'll are giving CPR to fish on your boats? ..... You're doing it wrong! ?

[813basstard]

I’ll keep a few small ones for breakfast every now and then. (If a small fried bass doesn’t taste good, your doing it wrong)

I never understand how keeping a 3lber make people cringe but blasting a deer or bear that was just strolling by is ok. 

Not against hunting either I just don’t know how it equates. 

[2tall79]

I prefer...."Fondle and Free"

[Harold Scoggins]

I'll CIE (catch, ink, eat) up to five bass every year. The rest I CPR.

[papajoe222]

There was a time, back in the 60's, when anything of legal size I kept and ate, or my family ate.  I'm 70 and I've been a catch and release angler since I was 22. I love the sport. Unlike hunting, you can catch the same fish over and over, but you can only kill a living thing once.

[JustALineWetter]

When you're trying to make ends meet on minimum wage, you take all the advantages you can. I don't keep dinks, but if it's fair sized, it goes home to the freezer. I'd say 2-3 meals a week are of fish I've caught...whether bass, trout, walleye, pike or panfish it doesn't matter - if it's eating size, it gets eaten.

[gnappi]

Most of the fishermen I know of here in So. Flo pretty much follow the same routine below.

 

I catch and release 100% of the LMB I catch

I catch and release most of the Peacocks I land, though I'll eat one every year or two.

I do not release any of the snakeheads I catch. They either get filleted and eaten by us or are given away (dead of course) to those in need. A few I feed to the vultures that sometimes watch us fish.

 

The carcasses are used under my tropical fruit tree collection as fertilizer ?

 

 

[Trox]

I only keep white bass, stripers, hybrids, and catish. I fish for largemouth 99.9% of the time and I'll keep keep them just long enough to get them to weigh-in, but that's it   

[the reel ess]

On 4/7/2019 at 8:37 PM, EGbassing said:

My dad says that the people on here that spend so much time fishing do it because they like eating fish. He doesn't believe that you guys actually spend the amount of money and time on fishing that you do just for the enjoyment of it. So I know most people probably keep some crappie or catfish or something from time to time, but how many of you actually keep all (or most) of your fish, and fish just because you like eating fish? I have to prove that I'm not insane for dropping $100 on a new SLX.

 

I've never kept a freshwater fish because I would be nervous eating them out of the ponds around here.

It's a dad thing, especially if they came up in tougher circumstances than us. My dad didn't feel like he actually got the full experience of fishing unless he ate the fish. He would even be tempted to keep more than a limit if that presented itself. He and another friend caught 180 crappie one day. They had to take them in twice and leave them in coolers. But then we crappie fished until I was a teen. Then we transitioned to bass. His mentality didn't change until he got older and tired of cleaning them.

 

I almost never keep any to eat. But I leave everything I catch at one pond in my buddy's basket because the pond is overpopulated. And if I fish from my other buddy's back seat, he keeps all bass in the 1-3 lb. slot as well as crappie and bream. It's a private place so there's no limit and not enough people fishing there to hurt the numbers.

On 4/21/2019 at 11:03 AM, 813basstard said:

I’ll keep a few small ones for breakfast every now and then. (If a small fried bass doesn’t taste good, your doing it wrong)

I never understand how keeping a 3lber make people cringe but blasting a deer or bear that was just strolling by is ok. 

Not against hunting either I just don’t know how it equates. 

That's what I love about fishing more than hunting. You don't have to kill anything and there's no big mess to deal with afterward, if that's how you want it. This is the best time of year for me because most of the "sportsmen" are turkey hunting.