Catch and release trout fishing as a volunteer management tool is spreading in many countries and has become common in many Norwegian rivers in recent years; the question has always been how, if at all, the fish are influenced by the practise.
It became clear that both fishery managers and anglers required more data on catch and release fishing: could you catch the same fish several times? What influences the survival of released fish? And what of the ethical, animal welfare and social questions?
To begin to address these questions NINA researchers captured and tagged 29 trout in Hemsila in 2010, all of the fish were given a Carlin mark (a plastic tag with an individual numeric code), and 26 of them were fitted with a radio transmitter. Over the following three seasons the researchers followed the fish in an attempt to find some answers.
Of the 29 trout marked 18 (62 percent) were recaptured a total of 40 times during the three fishing seasons (2010-2012) and two of the trout were recaptured six and eight times respectively during the period. It was also found that there were no visible signs of hook damage to the trout surveyed. The researchers believe that, despite the relatively small sample size, the results suggest that catch and release trout retain their natural behaviour.
Catch and release fishing has long been standard practise for coarse anglers and most would suggest that whilst catch and release does not prevent recapture it does indeed have a marked influence on the behaviour of some fish. It will be very intertesting to see how this particular research develops as the practise of catch and release expands within the game angling sphere.
