We caught maybe two fish per rod per day, nearly all of them on live caballitos with three ounces of lead near the bottom in 150 to 250 feet of water. Even fishing with 50-lb. test on light two-speed outfits, we still lost plenty of fish — some to pulled hooks, but just as many to the rocks. And the biggest one we boated weighed just 31 lbs. Talk about powerful ...
But here's the thing — we released all but two fish. That's right, released. Almost no one releases the middle-weight, good-tasting species — yellowtail, albacore, dorado, yellowfin tuna, salmon, halibut, white seabass — unless they already have a full limit, or the fish is under legal size.
It's easy to argue that the recreational catch — at least of the fast-growing, short-lived, migratory pelagics like yellowtail — is so small that releasing a few fish a year rather than keeping them makes virtually no difference.
That's almost certainly true. But releasing them definitely can't hurt, either. And if you don't really need the meat, why not? As I've argued in this column before, there's only so much fish a person can eat in a year. I weighed the yield from that 31-pounder at a little over 12 lbs. With generous, half-pound servings, that's 24 individual meals from a single fish.
Fortunately, yellowtail are surprisingly easy to release since they fight themselves to complete exhaustion and don't have any strength left for flopping around at boatside. Just lift them out of the water by the base of the tail, pop the hook out, spend a minute or two reviving them and then watch them disappear back into their own mysterious world.
