The worst part of losing good fish is that you cannot release them. They tailwalk across the back of your mind for days.
Catch-and-release fishing is an ecological necessity, not my preference. The practice smacks of bad faith, an inauthentic act.
The thrill of a fish at the end of the line, that thing that sparks from the dark water to spinal cord, is a vestige of an archetypal joy that has to do with sustenance, material and spiritual.