This probably could have been angler harassment.
Going fishing is a great way to sit back, relax and forget about your worries for a few hours. If you are fishing at a public pier you may make a new friend or two with the anglers around you who share your interests. Most anglers will agree that even a trip where you do not catch anything is better than not fishing at all.
That is until you run across a situation such as what is depicted in the video below. The people on the pier are trying to enjoy their evening, but an animal rights activist has taken it upon herself to spoil everyone's night.
Eventually one fisherman has had enough and confronts her. Be warned that there is harsh language in this video.
Did this woman even take a basic science course while in school? Fish do not have lungs, therefore they cannot "collapse" after being released back into the water. If "fish die immediately upon release," perhaps she would like to explain that to a large channel catfish that lived in the pond at my old home. I caught and released that fish at least five times over the course of a decade. It eventually died of old age, not the result of my catching it.
We will not even get into the part about her calling the fish "somebody." We are not sure we agree with the angler getting into a heated argument here. We get it, you want to defend the sport you love and enjoy. At the same time, what this woman was doing was likely grounds for calling in law enforcement.
Every state has laws on the books about interfering in legal hunting or fishing activities. She likely could have been ticketed for what she was doing and that may have made her think twice about these actions in the future.
We recommend having the number for your local game warden or other wildlife officer saved in your phone, to report illegal activity like this when it happens. We are not sure how this confrontation ended, but we do hope that was the eventual outcome.
For more outdoor content from Travis Smola, be sure to follow him on Twitter and check out his Geocaching and Outdoors with Travis YouTube channels.
NEXT: PETA IS NOW GOING AFTER FISHERMEN
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