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

Sustaining the fish and habitat in the activity you adore only tends to make feeling.

Nevertheless, occasionally a freshly caught trout, bass, or crappie is just to tempting to pass up. So even though I launch 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 numerous people say that they like to fish–but they don’t like to eat fish–and I just don’t comprehend this. To me there is nothing more satisfying then the feeling of being self-sufficient and providing food for ones family or ones self.

Granted, you can head 0n down to the Piggly- wiggly or ask the nearby fish monger for a good slab of fresh Tuna, but that primal instinct that man has- to hunt and gather, just can’t be satisfied by hunting down your meal with a shopping 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 shopping cart. I also never really feel compelled to pose in the seafood section, proudly exhibiting my handsomely and completely plastic wrapped 14oz keeper! Wouldn’t that look great on the mantle.

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

The problem most people have, is that they don’t eat 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 tell you. to me there is nothing tastier. Peeling absent the skin while it nonetheless 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 believe their fish is fresh at the supermarket. The Signal says fresh. BUT unless of course 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 hope for is three day fresh frozen fish.

Think about it.

Captain Ahab heads out to sea and runs his commercial operation ideally in the most efficient and somewhat profitable way. ** ( It is almost not possible these days for any commercial fisherman to make any profit-and they do it mainly as a labor of adore. Believe in me on this!!) He has to remain out lengthy sufficient to pay for the fuel, so he might remain out a few days, throw the fish on ice, and head in when he has sufficient fish to pay for a pitcher of beer, and a steak or pizza. (Anything but fish!!) In to port he arrives, where the fish purchasers will buy his catch, and then turn it more than to the distributors, who drive, fly, or ship your Clean fish to marketplace. Then you take it house, throw it in the freezer, where it sits under the frozen taquitoes or egg rolls for two months, having what ever flavors are left to it turned into some sort of papier mache meal fit for only a cat. The final insult to this wonderful finny friend who gave his existence to fill your gullet, arrives when you roll him in some pasty flour batter, pour a little beer on him and relinquish his flesh to the fry daddy- or equvilent- and then douse him with “catsup”!!

Exactly where is the humanity!!

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

That’s what most say, and truth be informed I have never been a big fan of “Pescado ala papier mache” myself!! AND, after deep frying the sucker into Mrs. Pauls culinary nightmare, there is not much distinction in between an egg roll and a Salmon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A.J. Klott
Writer, writer of fishing humor,and “fly tack” peddler. A.J. writes about the people,characters and modern day occasions that surround the fishing world. His first guide is due out in December of 2005.