Is Fishing a Bad Thing To Do? [View All]

[Generic Brad]

My entire family has become obsessed with fishing this summer. Six times a week at least, and on the days we don't go fishing, we go to sporting goods stores to buy fishing supplies. We even fish in the rain.

Sure, it is only catch and release, but we find we cannot stop doing this. My wife is happy because I have stopped obsessing about politics and world affairs. My kid is happy because very time we go out she catches the biggest fish of her life compared to the previous outing (last night she pulled in her first trophy sized bass). I am happy because my family is hanging out together every night and all weekend doing an activity together that we all enjoy. I think the fish are happy too, because we sure have been feeding more than we have been catching, and when we do snag one we have been releasing it back into the wild with a full belly.

Until this summer we never fished, but now we find we are having too much fun this year to quit. We are city dwellers and the last people you would think would go fishing. A few nights ago some guy walked up to me at a pier and started berating me for supporting the destruction of our ecosystem. He started telling me the fish we eat are all poisoned. When I responded that we only did catch and release he began getting on my case by saying that when we purchased our fishing licenses we became morally responsible for the destruction of the ecosystem because of the way our state Department of Natural Resources wasted our license money.

I politely begged to differ with him. If we had not purchased licenses, we could not fish. But it does raise a question. Is fishing a bad thing to do? I would wait for you answer tonight , but I have go to sleep now so I can get up before sunrise tomorrow to make sure we have our space secured on the fishing pier.