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Captain John, I don't know if I will keep my first 50, maybe, maybe not. When an Olympian earns a gold after many many years of training x hours per day, at the cost of who knows what over years, do they not keep the medal? When the grad student finaly gets that masters, do you throw away the paper? When the hunter tags and releases that grizzly bear - oh, that's right, no catch and release in hunting....
Personally, I keep a few fish a year for the table and when I get a 50, I may or may not keep it for the wall. But I KNOW I release in as healthy a manner as I can do, 99% of the fish I catch. I promote C&R and I also promote responsible angling in the community, and responsible management in the fisheries (yes, and I go to the meetings). And if you have a problem with the rules, do what you can to get them changed. What I try not to promote is a sense of elitism.
If your clients catch a 50, and perhaps it's a line record on the fly line, do you beat 'em with your bluefish club until they release it? Or do you lift it up out of the water and crush it's organs before you take the picture? And take the 5 minutes of poses and pictures before releasing it with greatly incresed mortality?
Hmmm, maybe we should make the striper a gamefish and reallocate those resources instead of working on the real problems facing striped bass, overall pressure on all size classes of these fish instead of what "user group" gets a crack at them. Maybe, just maybe, we could focus on things like the forage fish like menhaden and herring. Or maybe bycatch, you know things that will improve the entire biomass of the species across age classes instead of the 100 or so trophy 50# fish caught over the course of a year.
If you are man that wants to do something for these wonderful fish, why waste your time focusing on the 100 fish taken as trophys and redirect your efforts to something which will MEAN something in the long run....
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