Fishing Techniques - Methods_REVIEW 2018
In 2011, the National Park Service in Yellowstone National Park began reversing decades of regulation that promoted catch and release and other techniques that protected fish populations. In the name of native fish conservation, they began mandatory kill regulations on rainbow and brook trout in the Lamar River drainage and encouraged unlimited taking and disposal of non-native species, including brown trout in some park waters.

In Canada, catch and release is mandatory for some species. Canada also requires, in some cases, the use of barbless hooks to facilitate release and minimize injury.

In Switzerland and Germany, catch and release fishing is considered inhumane and is now banned.  In Germany, the Animal Welfare Act states that "no-one may cause an animal pain, suffering or harm without good reason".  This leaves no legal basis for catch and release due to its argued inherent lack of "good reason", and thus personal fishing is solely allowed for immediate food consumption. Additionally, it is against the law to release fish back into the water if they are above minimum size requirements and aren't a protected species or in closed season.

In the United States, catch and release was first introduced as a management tool in the state of Michigan in 1952 as an effort to reduce the cost of stocking hatchery-raised trout. 


Anglers fishing for fun rather than for food accepted the idea of releasing the fish while fishing in so-called "no-kill" zones. 


Conservationists have advocated catch and release as a way to ensure sustainability and to avoid overfishing of fish stocks. 


Lee Wulff, a New York-based fly angler, author and film maker, promoted catch and release as early as 1936 with the phrase



 "Game fish are too valuable to be caught only once." 

Don Martinez a West Yellowstone, Montana fly shop owner promoted catch and release in his 1930-40s 
newsletters sent to Eastern anglers.
Deep sea fishing 

While a number of scientific studies (source/citation needed) have now found shallow water fish caught-and-released on fly and lure have extremely high survival rates (95–97%) and moderately high survival rates on bait (70–90%, depending on species, bait, hook size, etc.), emerging research suggests catch and release does not work very well with fish caught when deep sea fishing.



Most deep sea fish species suffer from the sudden pressure change when wound to the surface from great depths; these species cannot adjust their body's physiology quickly enough to follow the pressure change. 



The result is called "barotrauma". Fish with barotrauma will have their enormously swollen swim-bladder protruding from their mouth, bulging eyeballs, and often sustain other, more subtle but still very serious injuries. Upon release, fish with barotrauma will be unable to swim or dive due to the swollen swim-bladder. The common practice has been to deflate the swim bladder by pricking it with a thin sharp object before attempting to release the fish.



Emerging research  indicates both barotrauma and the practice of deflating the swimbladder are both highly damaging to fish, and that survival rates of caught-and-released deep-sea fish are extremely low. However, barotrauma requires that fish be caught at least 30 – 50 feet below the surface.  Many surface caught fish, such as billfish, and all fish caught from shore, do not meet this criterion and thus do not suffer barotrauma.

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