I got in an interesting argument the other day with a friend at a local tackle shop. I was talking to a couple of people and mentioning that ?Catch and Release? greatly limited your catch because the fish you release go back and tell his friends and associates that there is danger in the area. I base this view on a comparison of my bass boating days and my newer, enlighten fly fishing days. In the bass boating days, my semi professional, bass-fishing friend and I could catch fish after fish off various points and drop-offs as long as the fish were placed in the live well and held there. If a fish got off the line or was released, the catch declined almost immediately. Today, I fish from shore and release all my fish (well, almost all). The fish that I catch go right back into the water. I seldom catch more than one or two fish off a single holding area even though I play the fish quickly and move the hooked fish away from the holding area. I am mainly talking about warmwater fishing here (bass, brim) but I?ve seen the same behavior occur with trout when they are tightly grouped together. BWT, small brim and other small sunfish are clearly an exception to this rule.

The guy at the tackle shop didn?t believe this but I know that released fish rat us out to their friends. Other fish in the area can detect the distress of the released fish either by its behavior, chemical secretions, color change or text messaging and develop a severe case of lock jaw. What do you think? 8T