Introduction
I want to try fishing.
But at the same time, I also think:
“Am I simply making fish suffer?”
“If I do not intend to eat them, is fishing cruel?”
I think it is natural for someone who is interested in fishing to have these doubts before starting.
For a long time, I could not organize this question in my own mind.
The problem was not about techniques or equipment.
I simply could not decide how to place the act of fishing within my own values.
In this article, I want to share how I worked through that conflict and eventually reached the point where I felt I could begin fishing.
Why I Could Not Take the First Step
For me, fishing was never just a form of recreation.
At least within myself, I could feel a hunting-like desire: to find fish, think about the right tackle and method, and try to hook the fish I was targeting.
But I did not want to kill fish.
I wanted to fish.
But I did not want to kill.
I could not reconcile those two feelings.
What does it really mean to catch a fish?
Is it simply an act of injuring an animal and taking its life?
Or is it a kind of contest that takes place between humans and fish?
Until I could find an answer that made sense to me, I could not begin.
Looking at Natural Predation in Terms of “Winning” and “Losing”
For a moment, I want to look at natural predation in terms of “winning” and “losing.”
Of course, this is not a fair contest between two opponents under equal conditions.
A predator tries to capture and eat its prey.
The prey tries to escape and survive.
Their goals and positions are completely different.
Even so, if we look at one predation attempt, there is a result that can be understood in terms similar to victory and defeat.
If the predator fails to capture its prey, that also means the prey has successfully escaped.
In that case, the surviving prey is not the loser. In that particular encounter, it has won.
If the predator captures the prey, the opposite is true.
The predator wins, and the prey loses.
And in ordinary natural predation, defeat for the prey usually leads to death.
As long as the prey is only being chased, the outcome has not yet been decided.
But if it fails to escape and is captured, it is normally killed and eaten.
In Fishing, the Angler Makes the Bait or Lure Play the Role of Prey
Fishing uses the structure of predation in order for humans to catch fish.
Ultimately, the human is the one trying to capture the fish.
In that sense, the human is on the predator side.
But fishing contains an interesting reversal.
The angler uses bait or an artificial lure to present the appearance of prey.
From the fish’s perspective, what appears in front of it may look like a small fish, insect, crustacean, or other edible animal.
The target fish temporarily takes the role of predator.
It follows the bait or lure and tries to eat it.
So the angler is ultimately trying to capture the fish, but first induces the fish to act as a predator.
In other words, the final predator—the human—uses bait or a lure as a substitute for prey in order to trigger the feeding behavior of the target fish.
This is especially clear in lure fishing.
A major part of the contest is whether the angler can make an artificial lure appear enough like prey to stimulate the fish’s predatory instinct.
If the fish sees through the bait or lure and refuses to strike, the human strategy has failed.
In that encounter, the human loses and the fish wins.
Even if the fish strikes, if it throws the hook, breaks the line, or otherwise escapes, the fish still wins.
If the human succeeds in triggering the fish’s feeding response, hooks it, and finally lands it, then the human wins and the fish loses.
Fishing therefore does not begin with a human simply restraining a completely passive fish.
It begins when a human-made presentation connects with the fish’s own feeding or predatory decision.
Of course, this does not mean the fish has “agreed” to be caught.
Nor does it mean that being hooked is somehow the fish’s own responsibility.
The human created the situation and deliberately used the fish’s feeding behavior.
That responsibility remains with the human.
But I also think it is inaccurate to describe the fish as completely passive from beginning to end.
The Option of Catch and Release
Eventually, I began thinking seriously about catch-and-release fishing.
But I could not simply tell myself that release solved everything.
A fish may be injured by the hook.
It may become exhausted during the fight.
Being removed from the water can also place stress on it.
And release does not guarantee survival.
I understand the argument that “injuring a fish for human enjoyment, when you do not even intend to eat it, is cruel.”
At the same time, in natural predation, if the prey escapes, the prey wins and the predator loses.
If the prey is captured, the predator wins, and defeat for the prey usually leads to death.
Fishing has a similar outcome once the fish has actually been landed.
At that point, the human has won and the fish has lost.
Historically, what usually followed was the death of the fish.
Catch it.
Kill it.
Eat it.
Catch and release adds a different ending.
The human wins, the fish loses, and yet the fish is not killed. It is returned alive to the water.
From the perspective of ordinary natural predation, this is an unusual outcome: prey that has lost to the predator is nevertheless released alive, with a chance to survive.
I discuss this structure in more detail in another article:
“Is Catch and Release Cruel? Rethinking It Through Predation in Nature and the Chance of Survival.”
However, catch and release does not exist outside nature.
Humans are animals living within nature.
A human catching a fish, thinking about what to do next, and choosing to release it is also an event occurring within a natural world that includes humans.
Even so, compared with the extremely long history of humans catching fish, deliberately catching a fish and returning it alive is a very recent development.
That is why catch and release can still be regarded as exceptional today.
It is not exceptional because it exists outside nature.
It is exceptional because, within the long history of fishing, it is still new.
If catch and release continues for hundreds or thousands of years, it too may eventually become one of the long-established ways humans and fish interact, and part of their shared natural history.
Human Contradictions and the Desire to Fish
Human beings are contradictory creatures.
We kill animals and fish for food.
At the same time, we love dogs and cats and value their lives.
The taking of life and the cherishing of life coexist within the same species.
My own desire to try fishing may also be part of that hunting-like side of human nature.
I want to find the fish.
I want to think about the right method.
I want to understand the fish’s behavior.
I want to make the fish respond to my presentation, hook it, and bring it in.
There is something enjoyable there that cannot be explained only by the need to obtain food.
The problem is not simply that this desire exists.
The real question is how I should deal with it.
I did not want to deny my desire to fish.
But I also did not want to deny the burden placed on the fish.
So I began asking myself what kind of fishing I could practice while accepting responsibility for both.
How I Finally Organized the Question
After thinking through all of this, I realized that my real problem was not deciding whether fishing was completely good or completely bad.
The more important question was this:
What kind of fishing could I personally take responsibility for while still recognizing the burden placed on the fish?
Fishing is not harmless.
Even with catch and release, fish may suffer hook injuries and exhaustion from the fight.
That cannot simply be erased.
At the same time, fishing is not something humans suddenly introduced from outside nature.
It is one of the interactions that has existed between humans and fish since prehistoric times.
Catch and release adds a new ending to that long relationship:
even after the human has caught the fish and won the contest, the defeated fish can still be returned alive.
Catch and release is not a moral excuse that makes fishing harmless.
It is a compromise.
It accepts the human desire to fish while making it possible for capture not always to end in death.
And because of that, anyone who chooses to release fish should also learn how to reduce harm as much as possible.
Do not prolong the fight unnecessarily.
Keep the fish out of the water for as little time as possible.
Handle the fish gently.
Learn handling methods appropriate to the species, water temperature, and fishing depth.
Return the fish in a condition that gives it the best possible chance of survival.
Once I accepted that responsibility as part of fishing, I finally felt that I could begin.
Conclusion
Is fishing cruel?
There is no simple answer.
I did not decide to start fishing because I had somehow proven that catch and release was not cruel.
The burden on the fish remains.
The contradiction of catching fish for human enjoyment also remains.
Thinking about these things does not make the harm disappear.
But I can understand what I am asking the fish to endure.
I can try to reduce that burden.
And after capture, I can choose an ending other than death.
That was enough for me to make a decision.
I chose to begin fishing while accepting that responsibility.
I do not want to deny my own desire to fish, but I also want to preserve the fish’s chance of survival as much as I reasonably can.
That is the answer I reached before I started fishing.
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