For the most part, I am an advocate for catch and release fishing.

Sustaining the fish and habitat in the activity you love only tends to make sense.

Nevertheless, sometimes a freshly caught trout, bass, or crappie is just to tempting to pass up. So even although I release most fish that I hook these days, I will occasionally thump one on the head and do my best Emiral Lagassi imatation,as I grill, cajunize, and accessorize my fish du jour.

I have heard many people say that they like to fish–but they don’t like to consume fish–and I just don’t understand this. To me there is nothing much more satisfying then the sensation of being self-adequate and supplying meals for ones family members or ones self.

Granted, you can head 0n down to the Piggly- wiggly or ask the local fish monger for a nice slab of fresh Tuna, but that primal instinct that guy has- to hunt and gather, just cannot be satisfied by hunting down your meal with a purchasing cart. That’s why the caveman invented the spear first and not the wheel. That, and the reality that it is simpler to throw a spear then it is to throw a purchasing cart. I also by no means really feel compelled to pose in the seafood area, proudly displaying my handsomely and totally plastic wrapped 14oz keeper! Wouldn’t that appear great on the mantle.

All that being stated, I would like to go back again to the issue of flavor.

The problem most people have, is that they don’t consume their fish fresh. I have caught trout at 6-thirty p.m. and had it prepared for the blue plate unique at 6-forty 5, and I gotta inform you. to me there is nothing tastier. Peeling away the skin while it still on the bar-b, and savoring a bite of freshly caught mountain trout….tends to make my mouth h2o just pondering about it!

Most people think their fish is fresh at the supermarket. The Signal says fresh. BUT unless you reside on a boat, oil derrick in the ocean, or meet the fisherman at the dock with your Hibachi grill fired up, about the best you can wish for is three working day fresh frozen fish.

Believe about it.

Captain Ahab heads out to sea and runs his commercial operation ideally in the most efficient and relatively lucrative way. ** ( It is almost not possible these days for any commercial fisherman to make any profit-and they do it mostly as a labor of love. Trust me on this!!) He has to remain out long enough to pay for the fuel, so he may remain out a couple of days, throw the fish on ice, and head in when he has enough fish to pay for a pitcher of beer, and a steak or pizza. (Anything but fish!!) In to port he comes, where the fish buyers will buy his catch, and then turn it over to the distributors, who generate, fly, or ship your Fresh fish to marketplace. Then you consider it house, throw it in the freezer, where it sits under the frozen taquitoes or egg rolls for two months, getting what ever flavors are left to it turned into some type of papier mache meal match for only a cat. The last insult to this fantastic finny friend who gave his life to fill your gullet, comes when you roll him in some pasty flour batter, pour a small beer on him and relinquish his flesh to the fry daddy- or equvilent- and then douse him with “catsup”!!

Where is the humanity!!

“Yeah, I love to fish but I don’t really like the flavor of fish.”

That’s what most say, and reality be told I have by no means been a large fan of “Pescado ala papier mache” myself!! AND, after deep frying the sucker into Mrs. Pauls culinary nightmare, there is not much difference between an egg roll and a Salmon.

Individuals usually say fish smells “fishy” and while as a entire this is accurate–the meat when fresh usually does not scent poor.

Most people that I have forced to consume real fresh fish–while at gunpoint– have usually been pleasantly shocked at the flavor, and have this appear on them like they have just tasted fish for the first time. Itchy set off finger aside, they seem sincere.

Hardly ever do they say: “It tastes like Chicken!”-

That’s simply because it tastes much better, and if you ignore the mercury poisoning, and DDT traces –it is much better for you.

Anyway, like the song says–”All we are sayyying is give fish a chance”…. or something like that.

So, keep supporting catch and release fishing, do what you can to enhance habitat and the atmosphere in general, but don’t feel guilty if you keep an occasional fish and get to experience what is truly one of the great pleasures of fishing, eating ones catch.

A.J. Klott
Author, writer of fishing humor,and “fly tack” peddler. A.J. writes about the people,characters and contemporary working day events that surround the fishing globe. His first book is due out in December of 2005.