Catch-and-release is often touted as the surefire method for ensuring we have fish to catch next season (or even next month). Rivers with catch-and-release regulations often have some level of natural reproduction, as well, sustaining the populations of trout us anglers love to catch.
The problem, according to Christine Peterson, is that catch-and-release is rarely practiced perfectly. When best practices aren’t followed, the end result is a lot of trout that aren’t in great shape.
In a wide-ranging story published last week, Peterson explores the problems facing fisheries managers and anglers as we learn more and more about the impacts of catch-and-release fishing in some of the country’s most popular rivers. The North Platte in Wyoming has been in the news a lot lately, with recent regulation changes to require barbless hooks and banning the practice of fishing with pegged beads.
That’s because a recent study by the Wyoming Game & Fish Department (WGFD) found that 25% of trout in the North Platte have some sort of hooking injury, whether that’s a broken jaw, deformed lip, or lost eye. Those hooking injuries caused a quarter of trout with them to die, according to Peterson.
In fact, those fatalities from catch-and-release fishing would, if things don’t turn around on the North Platte, require that WGFD start stocking the river again to support the trout fishery.
Peterson and those she interviewed for her story say that one way to push back against catch-and-release fatality is allowing for some sort of harvest, especially for fish that aren’t likely to survive because they swallowed a fly too deeply. The problem, of course, is that on a fishery like the Madison, allowing harvest would cause fish stocks to dwindle, since it doesn’t receive planted fish. In fisheries where wild trout reproduction is prioritized, the balancing act of catch-and-release seems precarious as pressure on fisheries mounts.
That means more regulations to protect trout—like those passed this year for the Miracle Mile and Gray Reef sections of the North Platte in Wyoming—are needed, which isn’t exactly the greatest thing to bring up in most of the West.
It’s worth reading through Peterson’s piece in its entirety because some interesting points are made about the viability of catch-and-release fishing in its current state. You can read her story here.
“There have been a lot of studies in scientific literature with trout, and they almost all show if catch and release is done right, mortality is basically zero,” Hahn says. “If it’s not done correctly, [mortality] can be 100 percent.”