Catch and release

Catch and release is a practice within recreational fishing intended as a technique of conservation. After capture, the fish are unhooked and returned to the water. Often, a fast measurement and weighing of the fish is worthwhile. Using barbless hooks, it is often possible to release the fish without removing it from the water (a slack line is frequently sufficient).

In the United Kingdom, catch and release has been performed for more than a century by coarse fishermen in order to prevent target species from disappearing in heavily fished waters. Since the latter part of the 20th century, many salmon and sea trout rivers have been converted to complete or partial catch and release.

In the United States, catch and release was first introduced as a management tool in the state of Michigan in 1952 as an effort to reduce the cost of hatchery-raised trout. Anglers fishing for fun rather than for food accepted the idea of releasing the fish while fishing in so-called "no-kill" zones. Conservationists have advocated catch and release as a way to ensure sustainability and to avoid overfishing of . Lee Wulff, a New York-based fly angler, author and film maker, promoted catch and release as early as 1936 with the phrase "Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once."Don Martinez a West Yellowstone, Montana fly shop owner promoted catch and release in his 1930-40s newsletters sent to Eastern anglers.

In Australia, catch and release caught on slowly, with some pioneers practicing it in the 1960s, and the practice slowly became more widespread in the 1970s and 1980s. Catch and release is now widely used to conserve — and indeed is critical in conserving — vulnerable fish species like the large, long lived native freshwater Murray Cod and the prized, slowly growing, heavily fished Australian bass, heavily fished coastal species like Dusky Flathead and prized gamefish like striped marlin.

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