I wanted to reiterate that this thread shouldn't turn into a 'whose ethics are right and whose are wrong' debate...

I am just curious about what happens when two anglers have conflicting ethical stances...or situations that arise where you as an angler are conflicted as to what the ethically correct thing to do is. Here is an example from very recently...

Fishing in a river closed for kings...fisherman not in my party hooks an obvious king, a large bright fish which proceeds to wrap him around a net float that is occupying the middle of the hole. Fisherman asks me to cast over his line and reel in the slack as he freespools...instead of taking up as much slack as possible and cutting the line the fisherman cuts his line, quickly disengages his mainline from the net float, reties a bloodknot and plays the fish out, successfully releasing it. It was really quite impressive but I found myself questioning the necessity of retying the fish on when we all knew it would have to be released anyway.

The very next day, as if to test my ethical metal, my brother hooked a fish that we never saw which eventually broke him off way up into his mainline (can you say rats nest?)...A few casts later I hook and retrieve a huge length of line but just before I can grab it it falls back in the river....You should have heard the pshaws and seen the funny looks I got when I mentioned that I thought I just had his fish back on the line so to speak....Thirty seconds later his buddy hooks the line and gets it all the way in...they get it retied long enough to feel the fish a couple of times and their knot blew out. Now...in this situation did not knowing for certain the species of the fish justify tying the fish back on? Probably...

Its not a question meant to be debated or even answered really, just an example of the kinds of ethical dilemmas that arise on the riverbank. Fishing ethics aren't as black and white as they appear to be on the surface so discussing or reading about situational ethical implications could be be pretty valuable, especially to fishermen that are young in their experiences. Developing a set of fishing ethics is an evolutionary process, the more we can discuss these kinds of issues as a community without the divisiveness of who is right and who is wrong, the more comprehensive an understanding of the ethical 'big picture' we will all have.

Or, as Chovied so eloquently put it, am I just a tree hugging hippie??

(Ever seen a hippie with a mohawk?)