Right Thin 



Zfy Jeannie Faris 



These days, conservation is "in." 



It shows in our attention to recy- 

 cling, carpooling, saving water and 

 reduced product packaging. And it's 

 casting new appeal in the sport of 

 fishing with the catch-and-release 

 ethic. 



For ages, the creed of the honor- 

 able sportsman has been to respect the 

 quarry, limit the take and use the 

 remains in a productive way. He 

 lowers his rod with an eye toward 

 preserving the population for another 

 day. 



But fishing, like hunting duck and 

 deer, is above all else a sport for many 

 who sink a line off the North Carolina 

 coast. And though sportfishermen 

 frequently make a meal of their catch, 

 they take to the water to enjoy the 

 outdoors and a good fight with a lively 

 fish. 



That fish, however, can be recycled 

 with a few catch-and-release skills. 



Rather than dropping it into a 

 cooler or leaving it for dead on the 

 shore, an angler returns the fish to the 

 water and takes steps to ensure that it 

 can survive to spawn and perhaps bite 

 another angler's hook another day. 



It's more than good sportsmanship, 

 supporters say. It's an investment in 

 the fast return to the sport of fishing. 

 Otherwise, the trends toward dwin- 

 dling stocks and growth in fishing spell 

 doom for the sport. 



"No one has a problem with 

 someone taking home enough fish for 

 him to eat," says Jim Murray, director 

 of the Sea Grant Marine Advisory 



Service. "But the days of catching 

 more than you can eat to bring back to 

 the dock and brag about are over." 



Anglers are more conservation- 

 minded now, perhaps because they can 

 see for themselves that the stocks are 



For ages, the creed of the 

 honorable sportsman has been 

 to respect the quarry, limit the 

 take and use the remains in a 

 productive way. He lowers his 

 rod with an eye toward 

 preserving the population 

 for another day. 



declining, Murray says. The success of 

 a trip is no longer gauged by the 

 number of fish in the cooler at the end 

 of the day. The smaller fish go back 

 into the water. 



Even so, the quality of recreational 

 fishing is not what it used to be, says 

 Bo Nowell, president of the N.C. 

 chapter of the Atlantic Coast Conserva- 

 tion Association (ACCA-NC). In the 

 late 1970s, Nowell trekked to Ocracoke 

 every May to catch gray trout. The 

 Cary sportfisherman no longer does 

 this. 



"There's no reason to," he says. 

 "The fish are so small. They're fewer 

 and harder to catch. And when you 



catch them, why keep them? I don't 

 want a 10- or 1 1-inch fish. And I 

 don't want to kill the bigger fish 

 because they support the population." 



Nowell began "preaching the 

 gospel" about catch-and-release after 

 1988, when he saw a fellow at 

 Oregon Inlet cleaning spots hardly 

 more than 4 inches long. Perhaps the 

 man had children who caught them, 

 he says, but a lesson in catch-and- 

 release would be more appropriate 

 than killing undersized fish. 



Obviously, the complexities of 

 fishing ethics run deep. What is right 

 or enough varies from person to 

 person, and it's hard to get anglers to 

 practice catch-and-release when they 

 often don't abide by the legal limits 

 on some fish, Nowell says. 



Sometimes anglers just get caught 

 up in the excitement of the moment, 

 keeping more fish than they could 

 possibly use. But this type of behav- 

 ior is also a reflection of entrenched 

 values, which are sometimes difficult 

 to change. 



Education — to change attitudes 

 and destructive behavior — has 

 helped. 



As recently as the early and mid- 

 1980s, the catch-and-release ethic 

 hadn't caught on in North Carolina. 

 Nowell remembers seeing trophy- 

 sized red drum hanging from scales at 

 every tackle shop from Avon to 

 Buxton. 



"They were every place you 

 turned. We used to call them dead 

 drum," he says. "People were proud 

 to have caught a large fish. They got a 



8 MARC HI APRIL 1993 



