I couldn't have said it better, myself. I live mostly on what I catch, kill, and forage. I follow all laws, and use common-sense (which is why I eat a lot of carp. I don't think they are going to be endangered any time soon....).

Quote Originally Posted by DDRRedneck500 View Post
I think I'm a pretty lucky fisherman, because my home body of water is a highly eutrophic reservoir with a MASSIVE amount of shad, and subsequently massive populations on everything else, including bass, crappie, BIG catfish, bluegill, and carp. Also I live in an area with almost no other fly fisherman, and instead just a bunch of bass guys in their place. The bass tourneys on the reservoir can get annoying but it also means that the bass are the ONLY fish that anyone else targets here

So to answer your question, I keep fish ALL THE TIME!!! My criteria are pretty much
a. If its big enough that I want to bother filleting it
b. If its a catfish thats below 8 pounds
c. If it's a bass, I'll only keep them on occasion. they do get hit hard by the bass jocks so I go very easy on them.

But other than that, I stock up my freezer with fish during the summer, deer and small game during the winter, and then get to eat like a king when I'm away at college and all my friends are stuck eating ramen noodles

If you catch and keep that many fish though, it does take some self-imposed management, because even while staying within legal limits, you could still damage a fishery by keeping limits of fish day after day. So I tend to be conscientious of what I do and mix it up frequently by where I fish, such as between one boat launch, or a different one 3 miles upriver, and also mixing up which species I target. Bluegill, crappie, perch, catfish, carp, and the occasional bass all frequently wind up on my plate though. Even turned out some live threadfins I had left over from catfishing turned out really well butterfly-ed, fried, and dipped in tarter sauce....