Why It Matters: While it may not be obvious or intuitive, for some species, the fish we release when saltwater fishing factors into how many days we can pursue that fish in the future. To ensure sustainable access to those fisheries, and because it is simply the right thing to do, we need to do our best to ensure our catch and release practices maximize fish survival.
Highlights:
- A proportion of released or “discarded” fish are assumed to die and can have impacts on quotas and season lengths for many of our saltwater fisheries.
- Simple steps like using a descending device or moving to a new location when facing unwanted predation on released fish can go a long way to ensuring sustainable fisheries well into the future.
Regulatory discard – a rather harsh term used by marine fisheries managers to characterize a fish that we have to return to the water because the season was not open for the particular species caught or they were not of a legal size to harvest. Even if you are like me and do not necessarily want to keep every legal fish you catch, the fish we release to be caught another day or for general conservation purposes are still considered simply “discards” by those who set our seasons. Regardless of whether we call it catch-and-release or fishery managers call it discarding, the fish we put back in the water play a role in how managers estimate stock size and available fish to harvest. As anglers, we have a responsibility to ensure that we do all we can to return fish in a way that gives them the best chance of surviving so that we can continue to enjoy chasing them again in the future.
The South Atlantic red snapper fishery is perhaps the best example of how discard estimates greatly impact our access to the fishery. While the current red snapper population abundance is at an all time high, the number of discards estimated by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), combined with their estimate of the proportion of those that die after release, is extremely high and eats up nearly all of the available harvestable quota. While the NMFS estimates of overall red snapper mortality are highly suspect, that does not mean that we should not take all necessary steps to reduce the potential sources of mortality for released fish ourselves.
Common sources of mortality:
- Barotrauma – this occurs when a fish is rapidly ascending from deep water. The gases in the fish’s swim bladder and organs expand when going from the higher-pressure deep water to the lower-pressure surface water. Even if released immediately, fish may not be able to overcome the buoyant forces of the expanded gases and swim back down. Solution – the use of descending devices or proper use of a venting tool. Visit Return ‘Em Right for some valuable instruction on how to use descending devices and an opportunity to get the necessary tools for free!
- The Tax Man – shark depredation, or the loss of all or portions of your fish to a shark while on the line, is increasingly problematic, especially in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico (Gulf). While the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation (CSF) and our partners are working to pass the SHARKED Act to further explore this problem, it is very real and becoming more frequent. Solution – move! Typically, once a shark shows up on your spot and starts eating your fish, it only gets worse as more sharks join in. Too often I see people stay on that spot and try to get fish to the boat, but the sharks nearly always win that battle. It is better to pick up and move to a new location than to continue perpetuating the unnecessary loss of fish and further conditioning sharks to seek out people who are fishing.
- Flipper – you heard me. Those cute dolphins everyone wants to see while at the beach are not a welcome sight when you are fishing. It is not surprising that these highly intelligent and athletic mammals have been known to take fish off hooks being trolled behind the boat without being hooked themselves. More often, at least in my experience, they playfully circle your boat and wait for you to release a fish, sometimes grabbing it right away and sometimes playing with the struggling fish before finally eating it. Solution – again, move! Although, you typically must travel farther to get away from dolphins than from sharks because dolphins are increasingly being conditioned to following boats for the almost guaranteed reward of an easy fish meal at some point. If you are lucky, they get bored and stop following you. At times, however, they will persist. In those cases, target bigger fish that you can legally harvest and not have to throw back. If you do catch smaller fish, return them with a descending device, which creates at least something of an obstacle to easily taking the fish, and you can send the fish down much more quickly with the weighted device than it would swim on its own. If you only have a venting tool, wait for the dolphin to circle wide of the boat and quietly slip the fish into the water on the other side of the boat. Whatever you do, please do not intentionally feed dolphins with any food source! You only perpetuate the problem, which is not good for our fisheries or the dolphins.
As anglers, it is incumbent upon us to take care of the resource, including releasing fish in a way that best ensures their survival. While it may be entertaining to try and catch fish during a shark feeding frenzy or watch dolphins chase tossed fish or bait next to the boat – don’t be one of those people.
