The only thing that’s more important than knowing how to catch fish is being able to let them go!  I get the same comment a lot. “You must eat a lot of fish.”  Of course my answer is no.  I like to tease and tell people that eating fish is cannibalism.  Don’t get me wrong – I do keep a few fish like crappies, walleyes, northern pike but no bass.  There is nothing wrong with keeping a few fish every now and then for your own table.  

I do have a problem with someone supplying the neighborhood or work place with fish.  When someone asks me for some fish I simply tell them how much fun it is to go fishing and that they need to experience it for themselves.  

I understand that fisherman have a reputation for stretching the truth.  There’s a lot of peer pressure when your buddies ask you how your fishing trip went and you tell them you did great, but let them go so that you could catch them again.  They may razz you and call you a liar because they don’t believe that you caught some and then let them go.  

  This is the hardest part of catch and release.  This is where a camera comes in and saves you.  For years I carried one of those disposable cameras.  They worked ok but have their share of down falls. This is a new age and it is time to go digital. With the digital camera you can take a bunch of pictures then scroll through and delete the ones that you don’t like before you pay to have them made into prints.  

Most species of fish in Iowa have a minimum length limit so that people are not keeping fish before they are mature enough to spawn.  On the other end of this is the damage that keeping larger fish can cause.  It’s a proven fact that fish with the genetics to become big fish produce other big fish. So you’re not just killing one nice fish but an entire bloodline.  

Iowa does have several bodies of water with a slot length limit on different species.  A slot limit is a minimum length and also maximum length limit on one particular specie.  You can only keep the fish that fit in the slot between the lower and upper length limits.  As I said earlier there is nothing wrong with keeping a few fish to eat. Next time you set out on a trip and plan to keep a few fish try setting your own slot limit whether or not one already exists on that body of water.  I know that I’ve caught the same fish on multiple occasions and that alone is enough for me to continue.  

What it comes down to is this. There are more people fishing now than ever before and with the improvements and advancements in equipment and knowledge it is much more important now to practice catch and release for our future. The proof is in the picture, the picture in this issue is of a couple of four and a half pound largemouth bass that I caught in a tournament on pool 10 of the Mississippi river this spring.