I’m not sure about you, but I can safely say that I’m NOT helping to spread viruses to amphibians! I rarely use live bait when I fish, and I’ve never used a live or dead waterdog as bait. I prefer to use the plastic or rubber worm type lures whenever I fish. However, this article makes a good point that I was talking about with my sons as we came back from our first fishing excusion this past weekend.

We are responsible for our environment. As a boy scout, I was taught to leave a place just as clean or better than it was when I found it. I’ve tried to always accomplish this in my life and fishing is no exception. I hate seeing trash on the ground when I’m fishing. So I’ll usually pick it up and make certain that I don’t add more pollution to the environment, no matter what I’m doing.

Along that same point – we saw 2 young girls walking towards the creek with a catfish in a plastic bag. It looked like one from a “pet store” and I asked them if they had caught it. One girl replied “No – it’s my pet”. I could only guess why she was carrying it toward the creek! So I explained to my sons how important it was to NOT introduce fish into waters where they don’t belong. I used the snakehead fish as an example. I explained how it came from China and was introduced into the Potomac and is now killing off our native fish species – all because of some careless human beings.

Which brings me to another thing – when I was a child back in the late fifties and sixties, every morning I’d go outside and there would be dead toads in the street. Fresh road kill from the automobiles passing during the night. We used to catch toads and frogs all the time – every day! But now, I’m lucky if I see one toad the whole summer season. Scientists aren’t sure why the frog and toad populations are dying off, but their numbers are declining and here’s one possible explanation:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96282292
So for the sake of having a few less weeds on our properties, we’re causing the extinction of frogs and toads?!? If you’d like more info on frogs in general, here’s a great resource site I found: http://allaboutfrogs.org/info/resources/leaping/science.html

OK – this post is getting too long, but as freshwater fishermen, let’s be more conscious of our actions and the effect they will have on nature and the environment. And for goodness sake, stop using virus infected waterdogs!

Catch you later.

Freshwater Fishing and The Environment is a post from: The Fresh Water Fishing Blog

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