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Hydraulic Hunting

Wading the Slippery Waters of No Kill Angling

By David Petersen

"My purpose is not to fight [the fish] but to join them, to watch their tail-waggling rise forms at the end of my cast or their raindrop dimples as I fish down to them in the quiet coves, to feel them against a wisp of graphite, to cradle them in the coolness of their river while it piles against my ribs."

- Ted Williams

"On balance, in the big picture and long view, catch-and-release angling facilitates more and bigger fish, more and bigger pleasures for fishers, as well as better-balanced aquatic and riparian ecosystems. "

Some people frown when I refer to fishing as "hydraulic hunting." After all, recreational angling is enjoyed by millions of people who do not hunt animals, and some of whom vigorously condemn hunting.

Yet, I argue, fishing is hunting - ask any osprey, otter, bear ... or fish.

Yet again, catch-and-release fishing, which is immensely popular in America today among 4 million purist fly tossers, differs from all other types of hunting in that no killing is required to consummate the activity: The fish is hooked, played, landed, handled, admired and released.

Thus, primary among the many intricately interwoven questions to be explored in the arena of fishing-as-hunting are:

* Why do we fish - including the many of us who do not hunt?

* How, if at all, does recreational fishing differ morally from recreational hunting?

* And finally, specifically regarding catch-and-release angling, what effects, physical and otherwise, does our fishing fun have on the welfare of the mysterious creatures we catch, caress and set free?

The answers lie waiting in cold mountain water.

I began my lifelong fishing passion as a child angling for perch, bass and catfish with cane pole, bobber and bait. And still today, my favorite freshwater eating fish is the sleek channel cat. Yet catfish prefer warmer waters, and here in the Rockies, where I've made my home for a quarter-century, most streams and lakes are cold. For this reason, though not this alone, my fishing has evolved to be limited mostly to casting dry flies for trout - which, lovely and spirited as they are in the water, strike me as boring on the plate. But no great matter, since catch-and-release is all about challenge, skill and being outdoors, and nothing at all about food ... which, ironically, is precisely what opens this superficially benign pastime to criticism and prompts me to ponder why I do it, even as I do it. Like right this moment.

While mentally scribbling these haphazard thoughts, I'm standing prudently shy of crotch-deep in a two-acre Colorado spring pond, having walked a ways to get here. In return for my small and pleasant effort, I'm assured of privacy, sublime scenery and unspoiled angling. The only sounds are a light breeze rattling through massive cottonwoods, the happy twittering of bountiful birds - melodic robins, raucous jays (three local varieties: Steller's, scrub and pi�on), the piercing cries of one killdeer, the signature peent-peent of early-shift nighthawks swooping and diving for airborne insects, the quiescent quacking of a pair of greenheads lurking behind a screen of cattails - together with the ratchety chatter of my reel as I strip out line, the soft wind-whisper of that line arching behind me, then shooting forward to unfurl and drop, quiet as thought, on the water's mirrored face.

Far above, dark-edged platinum clouds laze through a sky as blue as the South China Sea. Lower, a great blue heron, like some prehistoric memory, approaches for a landing - then spots me and flares away. Sorry, heron, but I'll stay only the evening, and I'll leave all the fish for you.

Lacking any breeze or notable current to invest my imitation mayfly with lifelike movement, I twitch my rod to animate the feathery lure, let it sit a moment, twitch, sit, then repeat the whole artful cycle: rod hand lifts briskly as line-control hand drops to haul in an arms-length of line, thereby shortening and speeding the backcast - a heartbeat's pause as the flying line straightens out behind, then rod tip whips forward, whipping the line out over the water, full speed ahead. Just as the line is about to come taut, I release the length of slack held in my line hand, relaxing the final moment of the cast so that weightless fly, hairlike tippet and long thin leader drop gently and quietly to the water ... one, two, three.

Form informs fly casting. And that form, along with knowledge - of trout, the organisms they eat and the quirky personalities of mountain water, moving and still - define fly fishing. It's a song of the senses, a celebration of the spirit. A ceremony of the soul.

Fly fishing is to bait fishing as ballet is to bowling, and to spin fishing as chess is to checkers. The gear selections alone are daunting, with fly lines that float, sink, shoot, defeat wind or ice and come in a variety of weights; rods of many materials, lengths, flexure and weights; plus reels, creels, landing nets, leaders, tippets (leader-leaders), waders, wading shoes and a brain-boggling multitude more. You could devote your kid's entire college fund to acquiring fly fishing stuff - and never exhaust the options. And a few do exactly that, indulging in the "snob factor" so commonly appended to the sport, at least in the minds of worm wranglers.

But it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to be a dentist or investments banker, wear tweedy threads or cast like Brad Pitt in A River Runs Through It to enjoy fly fishing. Outfitted with an inexpensive rod, a simple reel spooled with 5-weight double-tapered floating line, plus two each of half a dozen basic fly patterns and a few essential skills learned from books, magazines, videos, friends and pleasurable practice, and you're set.

I was first exposed to the magic of fly fishing at age eight, while camping with my family along the Frying Pan River in Colorado. My parents weren't fishers, and this was my first encounter with trout and cold mountain water. But I had worms in a can and the fish were friendly, so I caught a few in spite of myself. Yet the focus of this recollection is the "old guy" camped nearby. He was a fly fisher, the first I'd ever seen in action, and he caught a lot. He didn't have much to say, but seemed willing enough to let me shadow him and watch.

Watch as he surveyed the air and water to identify the specific aquatic insects hatching then and there. Watch as he selected the appropriate imitation from dozens hooked into a wide sheepskin band circling his fedora. Watch as he studied the sun-spangled water, mentally mapping likely trout haunts. Watch as he ticked his willowy wand of Tonkin Gulf bamboo to and fro, steady as a metronome, the fly never touching the water in front or the vegetation behind, "dry casting," letting out a bit more line with every repetition until the rod tip pointed and stopped and the line shot forward and fell, just so, daintily depositing the tiny lure exactly where he wanted it.

And often as not, exactly where the trout wanted it. A quick silvery flash, amorphous yet distinctive, as the fish rose and lipped the lure; the old guy's rod tip rising in response. After playing the fish briefly, my accidental exemplar would finesse it in, net it, admire briefly its writhing or compliant form (and grant me a quick close look), then grimace as the smacked its head against a rock, deftly gutted it and slipped the colorful corpse into a wicker creel lined with cool wet grass.

This, of course, was back in the days when catch-and-devour was what was - years yet away from the time that dams, irrigation, road-building and logging and erosion, overgrazing, mining and agricultural pollution, human overpopulation and trend-setting Hollywood movies would conspire to mandate a new fly fishing paradigm. So I thought nothing of it. But even if the old guy had never caught or killed a fish - you could see this in his every move and gesture - he would still have been in heaven ... wading heart-deep in that perky mountain stream, the icy press of yesterday's snowmelt rushing all around, immersed body-and-soul in it all, writing love letters to life with an eight-foot quill of Vietnamese grass.

Now I am older than the old guy who first fanned my passion for fly fishing, way-worn and a little drifty as I stand here in numbing-cold mountain water (I didn't bother to pack in waders), reciting the fly fisher's flat-water mantra: cast, pause, twitch, pause, twitch, pause, cast. The evening birdsong hits a crescendo. The sun slumps toward the distant Pacific, my home of long ago. The fishing is slow but so am I; it's a fit.

It's challenging, artful, fun and relaxing, this catch-and-release angling. And on its glossy surface, at least, it seems a right gentle way to interact with wild nature. Yet what might be the trout's take on this? What effect might having a hook set in your mouth, being forced to struggle at the long end of an invisible line - fighting for your very life, so far as you can know - then hauled, exhausted, from the element that sustains you to pant and gasp while being unhooked, hoisted aloft and photographed - a living trophy - then finally released ... how might such an experience impact your day?

The logical snag here is that we can't meaningfully compare fish and people. Yet, sniffing cautiously along this tricky trail of thought and concern, a growing number of concerned fly fishers are turning to barbless hooks, which mandate more mastery to hook and hold fish but also limit tissue damage and speed release.

On balance, in the big picture and long view, catch-and-release angling facilitates more and bigger fish, more and bigger pleasures for fishers, as well as better-balanced aquatic and riparian ecosystems. As legendary angler and outdoor writer Lee Wulff (the "father of catch-and-release fishing") observed decades ago: "Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once." Too valuable, that is, ecologically and aesthetically, as well as recreationally. Today, Trout Unlimited continues to champion Wulff's conservation wisdom through its credo of "limiting your kill instead of killing your limit."

Of course there are other views. One of them is voiced by Stephen Bodio, among America's most literate sporting writers. Though primarily a catch-and-release man himself, Steve advocates the occasional killing and eating of trout as a means of reminding ourselves of the inescapable visceral connection between human and fish, predator and prey, that gave ancient birth to today's lingering passion for what the unknowing decry as "blood sport." Killing and eating an occasional fish reminds us that fishing is - in fact, evolution and instinct, if not always in effect - hydraulic hunting.

Indirectly endorsing Bodio's view is Ted Williams, who boldly expresses equal passions for preserving and "viscerally touching" animate nature. "My favorite tip for catch and release," Ted jokes, "comes from the Newfoundland Provincial Government: 'Do not use gaff to handle fish.' " On the other hand, Ted rails righteously against the fisheries management problems exacerbated by the "holier-than-though, no-kill types who prate and simper and misquote Shelly" and piously refuse ever to kill a fish under any circumstances.

And yet, are these gentle souls doing no harm? Certainly, if done expertly and with compassion, hard-lipped trout and salmon can be hooked, handled and released with no noticeable injury. Ah, the doubters honestly ask, but what of unnoticed injury? And what about pain? Do hooked and handled fish suffer, physically and/or emotionally? And if so, how much? Tough questions, with no pat answers. All considered, and admitting a cautious conflict of interest, it strikes me that a swiftly landed, gently handled and promptly released, barbless-fly-caught fish likely experiences less pain, physical or emotional, than athletic humans voluntarily endure, for hours on end, while calling it fun. Certainly, adventurous humans choose to challenge pain, while a hooked fish has no choice. Yet my point here is not electivity, but relatively.

Sadly, there are exceptions to the "swiftly, gently, promptly" paradigm of conscionable catch-and-release. In high-profile trout and salmon waters worldwide, including many hallowed "blue ribbon" fisheries, hook scarring, excessive out-of-water time, rough and inept handling and other cumulative catch-and-release injuries are all too common, precipitating the death of an unknown percentage of repeatedly hooked and handled fish from repeated trauma.

Yet people always have fished - more than 34 million in 2001, according to the latest USFWS figures - and people always will fish. And even from the fish's point of view it's not all bad. Through license sales, special taxes on sporting equipment and outright gifts via sporting-conservation groups such as Trout Unlimited - whose 130,000 members donated, raised and invested $10.5 million for conservation programs in 2004 - American anglers contribute a king's fortune annually, combined with countless thousands of hours of volunteer effort, to help purify polluted waters, restore ruined riparian areas, purchase critically threatened habitats and otherwise protect, restore and preserve robust fisheries, benefitting entire ecosystems (otters, ospreys, bears and more), as well as fish and fishers.

Even so, the onus is on ethical anglers to do what we can to minimize the abuse of fish and their habitat. As I see it, the keys to fishing with a clean conscience include awareness, compassion, moderation, voluntary cooperation with sensible management goals and the 1-2-3 rules of common sense:

1. If catch-and-digest is your goal, pursue it in put-and-take (hatchery stocked) waters, or where it will improve the ecological neighborhood - helping (to cite but one example among many) to cull the voraciously predatory nonnative lake trout that threaten to decimate the native Yellowstone cutthroat population, thus eroding the entire Yellowstone ecosystem and fishery.

2. In waters supporting self-sustaining trout populations, where fishing pressure is heavy, where fish densities are low or where wild native populations are struggling for survival, practice barbless catch-and-release only.

3. In intensely fished areas where trout are handled often enough to show battle scars, refuse to participate and encourage others to do likewise.

I'd like to say I'm not proselytizing for fly fishing - that I don't give a can of worms whether folks do or don't. But it's just not so - because I believe there's a good likelihood that anyone who gives fly fishing a fair chance will come to love it as I do. And to love fly fishing is to the sparkling stretches of water that trout call home, and by extension, the scenic landscapes and fragile public lands those lakes bejewel and those rivers run through. And you, I, we will fight a lot harder to preserve what we love - enlightened self-interest at its natural best.

Meanwhile, back lakeside, another good day is almost done. My naked legs have long since gone blue and goosey from prolonged exposure to cold water. A warming campfire beckons.

But not just yet. A twilight caddis-fly hatch has just erupted, and this lovely little lake's until-now slothful citizens suddenly are rising everywhere to feed, some leaping high for their dinner (and, we are free to imagine, for the joy of it), slapping the water like beaver tails. Others - big, cautious browns, no doubt - expose only their lips to daintily, though quite audibly suck the tiny emerging insects from the filmy surface. No catch-and-release or moral self-examination going on out there!

Naturally (Murphy's law), it's rapidly growing too dark to fish and I struggle by Braille to tie on a #14 Elk Hair Caddis before executing what I decide will be my penultimate cast of the evening, randomly selecting a nearby rise ring as a bullseye ... and - Holy Mol�! - the water explodes as my offering is hauled hungrily down.

With the speed of long-practiced reaction, I lift the rod tip sharply, straightening the line and setting the barbless hook. This prompts my fishy friend to sound and run, prompting my reel to scream with delight. Where moments ago I was languid and lost in thought, now I'm hopping with adrenaline and my heart is sledgehammering inside my chest. By the gods, we're alive, this fish and I!

After several yards, the powerful animal abruptly ends its run and just lays there, stolid as a boat anchor. I slightly slack the line to let the fish rest for a moment, then apply slow pressure with rod and reel, regaining a few precious yards. Predictably, this prompts another run, only slightly less ferocious than the first.

And so goes the contest - line out, line in - as I attempt to finesse the fish to the finish line, establishing the best compromise I can between getting it over with fast (for the trout's sake), and not getting so heavy-handed as to snap the tenuous tippet (for both of our sakes). My rod arm is aching and my knees now are shaking from more than just the cold.

In good time, at last, my worthy opponent tires and begins to come. I work "him" gradually closer, getting a first good look in the evening gloom: a cuttbow, or rainbow/cutthroat hybrid, crimson-sided from cheeks to tail, multihued and luminescent - the most beautiful trout of them all, I say, albeit no pure-breed. And big as ... well, let's pretend that doesn't matter.

Hastening to the release, I clamp my rod under one arm, reach carefully down (no net, and none needed in such still water) and slide both palms beneath the temporarily docile animal. While one hand gently encircles the tail and inverts the fish, the other eases forward to let slip the hook. That done, I support the brilliant creature upright in open cupped hands, helping it to rest and recover.

Seconds pass, then, with one strong torque of tail, the artful salmonid flashes away, diving for the darkened depths.

Why do we fish - including many among us who will never hunt or kill?

The answers lie waiting in cold mountain water.

This piece is adapted from Heartsblood: Hunting, Spirituality, and Wildness in America, (Johnson Books), by David Petersen.