I used to get asked all the time why and what I am doing when releasing..half the time it would be curiousity or ignorance or both..half the time the guy was hungry..I'd take the time to explain, if it was a breeder why, if it was a slow grower why and sometimes if the guy was hungry and it was a little pecker I'd give him the fish and explain that he was lucky as if it was a big one it would have gone back swimming and when he would inevitably ask why, I'd reply that it would take thousands of larger fish than the tiddler to make the same amount of babies as one large fish..and so on..
But these days I am having to explain myself less and less and last season scratching for galjoen I was fishing with some "local" poorer folk and one caught a mase' cracker and promptly put it back! I asked him what he was doing and he explained to me that it was breeding stock! We chatted and discussed the breeding stock and how fish get more productive the older they get and so on and later he caught a smaller one later of abouts 8-10kg that he reckoned was his reward and took it home very chuffed. I got a gallie just shy of 60cm that went back and also one of abouts 38cm that came home..all in all I was very chuffed..More so that I see a change after years of drumming the greenie tune that the word is getting out that stocks are in bad shape and we need to carefully harvest our food and create a culture together of responsible fishing and looking after our fun and food together and improving things through being smart while still having fun and eating a fry..To see it repeated now in mag after mag and to see poor locals that can do with a big fish, returning them to breed, makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside!
Offshore though look billfish populations are down worldwide and longlining hammers them and what are you going to do with 300kg or more of marlin meat so I can understand the releasing. There is also the influence of the international billfishing scene as it is the sport of the jetsetters! Catch and release is the norm in a lot of places in the first world. That said the pelagics offshore are the most sustainable fish to keep, reef fish are the most unsustainable. A dorado grows to a meter in under a year but a poenskop takes 70 years. A yellowfin is 100kg+ and being caught in cape town at 3-5 years old!! A 50cm+ gallie is 20-30 years old...most fish encountered offshore are the right ones to be keeping for the pan and freezer. Inshore one must be very selective generally.
And then you get the spearos! LOL.. some are very eco minded and do things sustainable but while everyone is doing their part, our local ones are waiting for an upwell for the endangered reef fish to move out the reserves and onto the pinnacles above the thermocline, stunned so they can pot them and fill the secret hatches..each trip maybe a few centuries of fish growth..and less and less of the endangered breeders left to overflow onto the empty reefs up the coast for you guys to enjoy..eish..The pictures I have seen of literal lawns full of red steenbras, miss lucy and poensies...Others got so shocked by what goes on they stopped diving at all, some just go for pelagics, some rape it cause they can and they have rent to pay and willing buyers..
And then maybe one day everyone is doing their bit, and maybe even they stop or limit the shallow longlining and trawling, and no treknetters to F#$% it up as well...we better hope we have some estuaries left, undeveloped and industrialized and unpolluted..
