Nice Dave, remind me to stay off your boat.
I release most of what I catch. When fishing I keep only healthy size specimens like halibut, lings (in season of course), yellows, wsb and the ever so tasty......tuna. Occasionally I'll keep a good size Calico. EVERYTHING else goes back. When SCUBA diving, I like to use a pole spear and target large calicos. They have tasty meat and are super elusive. I hate to see people surfacing with large sheephead as well. They do so much more for the reef. It's also about as challenging as spearing a cow. As a youngster, I used to spear anything that moved. For some, it's all about the fish count. I guess the older I get, the less time I want to spend cutting up 1lb surf perch for a meager nightly meal.
Last thursday i went out on my second sport boat trip ever. I have my own boat, but I took out all my nieces & nephews (10 in all).
We were catching sculpin and sandbass. I was tossing all the guppies back into the water and the deck hand saw me doing it and told me not to. I said "these babies aren't worth the meat, let'em grow"!
He said there were people on the boat who would want them, and that they were gonna die anyway. I said " sorry bro, were only in 60' of water and I choose to release the fish I catch". I seems like those sporties only care about counts.
Musicalmike
Skipjack 20