5 Tips For Eco-Friendly Fishing

If you talk to any environmentalist long enough, you are sure to get a warning about how food is going to run out. There is a growing concern that between the increasing demand for food caused by a growing population, combined with a decreasing supply of food caused by a loss of arable land through sprawl, as well as the loss of pollinators, the increasingly severe weather from climate change, and decreasing fish stocks, it may not be long before we no longer have enough food to go around.

In many countries where agriculture is difficult due to regional climate and other factors, fish is often a main staple in the diet of that region. Here in the USA, although we typically eat around 20 kilograms of fish a year, that is still not a major component of our diet. Most of the fish consumed in the US either comes from the ocean or commercial fish farms. But we have a vast and relatively untapped resource of fish in our freshwater lakes and rivers that can help supplement our diets and make up some of the shortfall in food. But to tap this resource, we need to do it in a much more eco-friendly manner than we have with other resources in the past.

To fish in a more eco-friendly manner, I propose we take a five-step approach to eco-fishing.

1. Pack out everything you pack in, and more… trash that is. Trash, specifically plastic or Styrofoam trash is clogging our lakes. It doesn’t take long to find a Styrofoam cooler lid that flew off someone else’s cooler while they were motoring along… or bait can lid, or a wrapper of some kind. So the number one rule of eco-fishing is to take out at least one piece of trash that wasn’t yours. It’s not hard and you’ll leave the lake, or ocean a better place for it.

2. Only keep fish from invasive or overpopulated species. Many lakes in the USA are overpopulated by certain types of fish which causes the stunting of growth of all species of fish. Most commonly this will be Bluegill. Also invasive species of fish such as regular Carp, Drum, or that new Asian Silver Carp. These fish have no natural predators in the area and consume so much of the waterway’s food that native fish are often displaced.

3. Use every part of the fish you keep. This doesn’t mean you have to learn how to make sewing needles out of the bones, but if you’re not going to eat it, bury it in the garden. Decomposing fish give off vital nutrients that plants just love, so unless you have dogs in the area, don’t even worry about burying them more than a foot deep. You want them to be shallow enough for the plant roots of whatever is planted over them to reach the remains. Then you won’t have to worry about amending the soil they are buried under with nutrients for about 5 years.

4. If you use a boat make sure it’s properly maintained so that you’re not dumping any gas or oil overboard.

5. Use 100% lead-free tackle.

If we are all mindful enough to remember these five steps then we’ll leave our waterways healthier, we’ll have some delicious extra food, and we’ll have fun with the whole family.