In Australia, catch and release caught on slowly, with some pioneers practicing it in the 1960s, and the practice slowly became more widespread in the 1970s and 1980s. 

Catch and release is now widely used to conserve — and indeed is critical in conserving — vulnerable fish species like the large, long lived native freshwater Murray Cod and the prized, slowly growing, heavily fished Australian bass, heavily fished coastal species like Dusky Flathead and prized gamefish like striped marlin.

In the Republic of Ireland, catch and release has been used as a conservation tool for atlantic salmon and sea trout fisheries since 2003. A number of fisheries now have mandatory catch and release regulations.  

Catch and release for coarse fish has been used by sport anglers for as long as these species have been fished for on this island. However catch and release for Atlantic salmon has required a huge turn about in how many anglers viewed the salmon angling resource. 

To encourage anglers to practice catch and release in all fisheries a number of Government led incentives have been implemented.

Multilingual catch and release sign in Ireland.

In the United Kingdom, catch and release has been performed for more than a century by coarse fishermen in order to prevent target species from disappearing in heavily fished waters. Since the latter part of the 20th century, many salmon and sea trout rivers have been converted to complete or partial catch and release.