02-29-2008, 01:13 PM
You know, that's probably one of the biggest areas of discussion for the IGFA. I'm a member and get thier news letter and all. Keeping a smaller species of fish alive like a LMB or a bream is easy, but how do you keep a 800 pound shark alive? A 350 pound grouper? You can't, and with out verifying the species and confirming it with a biologist, no dice. It would be sweet if there was a way to simply take a flesh sample and somehow prove that it came from the fish. Then we could release the fish and simply provide the sample to the biologist for confirmation. But, the un-honest element would surface and it would be unfair to all the anglers that really did land a world record fish. I've let go more than a couple that I thought would break, not a line class record, but an All Tackle record. (Bowfin, Atlantic Sheepshead, Atlantic Spadefish, just to name a few) But, I wasn't sure what to do, and I didn't want to kill the fish for no reason. I was afraid I would do something wrong during the process of registering it and the fish would die in vain. Not my style. I'd rather let the fish go and catch him again another day. (unless he's a good eating fish, then he meets my frying pan or grill) But, most fish of large size are poor food quality, so there's no need to keep them anyhow. And you know the stupid part of all this? You have to pay to register a fish for a world record. LMAO!!!!!!!! What the hell? It's like 70 something dollars. They should pay us for all the crap we go through to register the fish.
[signature]
[signature]