The Commercial-News, Danville, IL

Sports

Discussion

January 6, 2012

Catch and Release should always be kept in fishing

BY SAM VAN CAMP Commercial-News

DANVILLE — I spent a day earlier this week with a friend showing him my fishing lure collection. I am in the process of writing a book on the jitterbug, a lure found in most tackle boxes in the area and a lure that I heavily collect.

The jitterbug was made by the Fred Arbogast Company Akron, Ohio and I have almost all of the catalogs from that company.

Arbogast was a person who believed in putting testimonials and pictures from people who had caught large stringers of fish using his lures.

The catalogs show large stringers of fish hanging on fences, boards and other structures with people displaying their large catches.

My friend made a disturbing comment; “You know,” he said. “They put the knife to every one of those fish!”

That’s the way it was back in the 1930’s and ’40’s — just after the Great Depression. Fish were caught to eat and few escaped the anglers filet knife. People back then didn’t practice the “Catch and Release” that is practiced by many today.

I told my friend what it was like back in the ’60’s and early ’70’s. There weren’t a lot of bass anglers back then using artificial lures.

I fished all through college but my fishing was sporadic, with classes to attend, field trips to take and work.

There wasn’t a lot of time to fish but during that time I was learning what it took to take bass on a consistent basis.

After I graduated, I continued on with my Master’s Degree in fisheries biology but grabbed a job in Farmer City.

When I got settled, living in Champaign and teaching in Farmer City, I got well acquainted with several of the teaching staff who fished.

When I asked them about bass fishing they told me bass were too smart so they fished for bluegill and crappie.

They took me to farm ponds that were filled with bass that I’m sure had seen very few lures.

In two years of teaching there I learned how to take bass from ponds and small impoundments. Bass fishing was about the same way when I married and moved to Georgetown, but bass clubs soon began to pop up which put more and more pressure on the fish.

Fishing is still good if you know the water but, it will never be like it was when I was growing up.

All a person has to do is look at the pictures in some of the early Arbogast catalogs to see how it was back then and, in looking at what the weights are in tournaments today, one gets an idea of how it is today.

Practice Catch and Release as I do and help save the resource!

Sam Van Camp writes about the outdoors on Fridays and Sundays. Call him at 662-6559. Fax: 446-6648. E-mail: pamnsam@nwcable.net

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