Lately I’ve spent quite a bit of time researching Lee Wulff for another writing project. It is interesting how long the ideas we think are modern have been around. Catch-and-release fishing is practiced by most modern anglers, and Wulff, one of New York’s most famous fly anglers, touted this idea as far back as 1936. Lee Wulff said, “a gamefish is too valuable to only be caught once.”

Catch-and-release regulations first appeared in the United States in Michigan in 1952 — the goal being to allow recreation without depleting the numbers of gamefish to the point where they are not available. Even with catch and release, some streams in the west are so popular that authorities are devising regulations to limit the number of anglers.

To read the entire article, please click on https://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/Outdoors-Catch-and-release-fishing-worth-time-14089840.php