It amazes me, as an avid fisherman, that there are others out there calling themselves sportsmen, who are inadvertently abusing our resources. These few bad apples are contributing to the destruction of some of the many fantastic fisheries that we have here in Canada. The people I am referring to, and you know who you are, are the selfish individuals who kill the fish they catch for the sheer hell of it. They give no thought to the impact unnecessary keep limits and over-harvesting have on a fishery or the long-term damage they are causing for generations to come.

I don't seem to fully comprehend why an individual has to kill a fine specimen of a musky, simply to cut off its head and discard its carcass so that they can mount the head on their living room wall. Hey, don't get me wrong I have a couple of trophies on my own wall. I'm not against displaying a fine catch for others to see, but wake up guys! This is the 21st century and there are many good taxidermists out there that will make you a replica mount from pictures and measurements. Such a trophy looks more realistic and will last a hundred times longer. It won't cost you any more money than a skin mount either. Besides, I know for a fact that out of the many fish taken home by anglers to be mounted, very few actually make it to the taxidermist. Most likely it will end up on the compost heap once they've been quoted a price!

The above comments may be a little harsh and I must apologize if they offend anyone. However, this is a subject that I feel very strongly about. I would also like to point out that this scenario does not only apply to musky but to all sport fish species in North America.

I feel that it is very important to drum these basic ethics of preserving our fisheries and natural resources into our children at an early age. We have to be an example to our youth, so they learn to appreciate, respect and preserve what we have here in Canada. If we do not teach these basic lessons, we are simply pushing the problem further down the line, in turn creating a snowball effect that could drastically effect our environment.

I do not think it is wrong to take a few fish for the table but we have to learn to selectively harvest what we catch and not be too greedy and selfish. Keep a few smaller fish; the ones that are actually good to eat, and let the big breeders go!

We simply cannot let our ignorance destroy what we have now, and even more importantly, what we could potentially have in the future. Let us be the generation that gets the ball rolling for conservation and smart resource management.

Author: Shaun Rickard