Shoot and Release

Ethical Hunter Throws Duck He Shot Back Into Sky

PEPIN, WI—Taking care to restore the bird to its natural habitat in a timely manner, ethical hunter Rick Streeter threw a mallard duck back into the sky Monday shortly after shooting it, sources confirmed. “I’m only into hunting for the sport, so every time I shoot a duck, I make sure to toss him back into his home up in the air once I’m done,” said Streeter after gently lobbing the downed duck skyward, stressing that the compassionate practice of shoot-and-release allowed him to enjoy the thrill of the hunt while ensuring that the waterfowl could return to its airborne life after a brief, temporary inconvenience. “Sometimes, if I shoot a duck that’s really big or impressive, I’ll take a picture holding it up afterward, but that’s it—right after that, I throw it back up above me. I feel good knowing that I can just let it go into the air and it’ll go right back to flapping around with the rest of its kind.” Streeter noted, however, that even the most skilled hunter occasionally fails to release a duck in time, thereby causing the bird to sink down to the bottom of the sky.

From The Onion.

The Skagit River: Catch and Release

The Skagit River has been known historically as a legendary steelhead river. There was another kind of fishing going on there Thursday evening as first responders fished people out of the river after the I-5 bridge collapsed. A truck carrying an oversized load took out several support beams, triggering the collapse.

Kudos to the rescuers. It was all catch and release. Only minor injuries and no fatalities. Like the governor said, a lot of luck and a great rescue team. Good work, guys.

 Photos by Jesse Barnhart, Jimmy O'Connor, and Angie Bantas.

Catch and Release

Click on photo for full size image.

An early example of enlightened thinking. For its time. This is from a book published over a hundred years ago, and the author and a certain William T. Hornaday challenge the "too-liberal fish laws" of Washington.

Note, though, that Hornaday pronounces this catch as "three times too many for one rod." I count sixty-five fish hanging, and it looks like the creel is full, say, maybe another fifteen in there. That means a reasonable brace of trout for one rod would have been twenty-six or twenty-seven fish.

Those are all probably wild fish, too. If only someone had come up with catch and release about then. I'd love to be catching those trout's great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren.


And I wouldn't mind catching twenty-seven of them in a morning. Or sixty-five or eighty of them, for that matter.

And then letting them go.