Catch your fish and eat it too, or what?

[DavidPT40]

I remember several years ago, I was out fishing on a small lake in a little trolling boat. As I passed another small boat, the fishermen in it held up two stringers of about ten largemouth bass. At first, my fishing partner and I were astonished that this small lake could produce so many large bass. Then I started thinking that those bass would never reproduce, and this lake would be deprived of a large part of its predator population.

 

[Hank49]

Here are some statistics on catch and release fishing.
Being an experienced fishermen reduces the chance that a fish will swallow the hook. I have only had one fish gut-hooked in the past two years, and it was a large channel catfish.

I find that some days the fish just seem more hungry and do swallow the hook perhaps because the feeding behavior is more aggressive. I use the same style and size hook and fish the same area quite often. I've seen it change from day to day. For instance, Saturday almost all the jacks are swallowing the bait in the morning, the next day afternoon hardly any are and all are lip hooked. Same bait, same species and size of fish. I've seen the same behavior variation with snappers too.