Let it be hereby known that I most emphatically support our present system of catch and release fishing. Used properly catch and release may well be the greatest method of conservation ever conceived in the minds of men. There are however some important questions concerning ethics and honesty which should concern anyone who has ever tied a horse hair to a long stick and set out in pursuit of the elusive trout.

The first of these concerns is the fact that the system opens a whole new spectrum of possibility for both the novice and the expert fisherman/storyteller... For instance, a Monday morning at work conversation may go something like this.

"Hey Jon, howdja' do up on the lake this weekend?"

"Well Dan, I'll tell ya the truth. I caught more fish, and of a much larger size than I've ever seen or even heard of anyone catching in the whole entire history of fishing."

"That's great Jon. Did you bring any of them back with you?"

"Of course not Dan. I'm trying to conserve our resources, as well as teach my children the value of good sportsmanship. I released every single one of those fish."

"I'm impressed Jon. Didja' at least get some good pictures of them?"

"Well, I did get a couple polaroids Dan but as soon as I saw how badly damaged my camera was, I threw it and those ridiculously deformed pictures into the lake!"

"Oh really Jon. What was wrong with your camera?"

"I dunno Dan. It just completely distorted the size of those enormous fish. I suspect that the heat of the sun must have caused some sort of metamorphosis which adversely affected the inverted parabolic curve of the exterior lense. This caused those fish to appear somewhat smaller than they actually were."

"That's too bad Jon. Hope ya have better luck next time.

NOTE: Jon did a reasonably good job here. He did make one tragic mistake though. That was using the word "TRUTH" in the introduction to his story. A more experienced fisherman/storyteller would totally delete this word from any fish story as it will invariably raise unwanted suspicion in the mind of the receiver of any such tale and should be wholeheartedly avoided.

On the other hand, Jon's technical description of the failure of his camera was superb. He could however have made it better if he had just used the HANDY DANDY FISHERMANS' GUIDE TO LATIN TERMS. With this guide, boring laymans terms like "exterior lense", could be replaced with more professional terms like "Lensis Outwardis Polaroidis". As you can see, this guide is and should be considered invaluable for the telling of any fish story. Don't tell one without it!!!

Another possible future problem in catch and release fishing stories is the ever advancing technological influence of fishing and photograqhic electronics manufacturers. This writer is presently working on a very lucrative but secret deal with some of these manufacturers to design and produce a very unique photographic system. This system will be fully capable of changing the dimmensions of any subject within a photograph, independently to any size you wish. This could become a very useful tool to any fish story teller. For instance, the fish I catch are invariably extrememly large. However, when I tell my buddies at work the actual size of my fish I usually end up wasting countless hours and gas in my pickup rushing them to the hospital with painful splitting sides and wrenching guts. With the new, Manual Subject Size Adjuster Camera (MSSAC) I will be able to show actual photographs of my catch but with the size scaled down just enough to make my stories more believable and infinately more safe.

The problem with this system is that it will be possible for certain unscrupulous individuals to actually use the camera to enlarge the size of their catch in the photograph. I'm quite certain that no one I know personally could stoop to such a low level of unholy deceit but I shudder to think of the possible implications this drawback could have on the future of fish story telling everywhere. We must all be aware that the possibility exists...

I have also heard rumors that a ring of evil, storytelling, photographic hackers are working on a system which will allow them to actually dub a fish into a photograph of themselves where previously no fish existed. This crime against nature is too disgusting to even talk about but again, we must all be aware that the possibility exists. It is my personal belief that these horrible, evil, fish storytellers are actually undercover agents for the elusive A.F.A.O.A.. (Anti Fishing Activists Of America). This hideous organization was founded and is now presided over by my wife, Colettilda . She has devised this fish dubbing scheme in order to diminish the credibility of us fishermen in the eyes of the media and the fishstory receiving public. Her ultimate plan is to outlaw all forms of recreational fishing and to doom us to mowing the lawn on Saturday. Fishermen beware! Our future could become much greener and significantly dryer if SHE has her way......

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