I can't understand all of these new age wrasse huggers.
If your conscience is pricked by killing a fish then your in the wrong game here!
Don't get me wrong,I regularly return ALL fish I catch,including codlings,bass and plaice so I am not an angler that fishes for the table-infact I don't ever eat fish.
If the argument is that they are not edible?-they are,just not very nice as full of bones. How many people eat flounders?should they be banned too?
If your argument is conservation then hell your all overlooking the fact that it's the codling stocks that are endangered not wrasse so then we should return all codlings too.
Thirdly,it is a fishing competition after all and they are not always that easy to catch so does an angler who catches say 3 wrasse for 7lb deserve to be beaten by a lucky 2lb coaly?
Another point to consider is that they are notoriously poor at surviving after being released after being dragged through the kelp either floating away belly up instantly or more commonly appearing to swim away no problems only to appear on the surface 10 mins later. So do we not go fishing incase a fish we wish to return doesn't survive?give over!
It always seems to be the same argument coming from people that rarely fish matches,at quite a few comps this year I have spoken to some top local anglers who are all dismayed at the wrasse ban and these are the lads fishing opens and supporting local clubs.
And the numbers of wrasse are becoming massively bigger year after year,go back 7 or 8 years ago and they were a bit of a novelty catch in the weed of Northumberland-now they are caught in every session up there,often 3 or 4 and not 1 codling. Look at the East fife coast over the last 10 years,exactly the same is happening here now.
So by all means,put back whatever you catch whenever you want but again if a dead fish is such a problem to anybody on a fishing forum then they must be lost!
Finally,if your clubs (if indeed you belong to one) wish to ban wrasse or impose a limit then fine but there is no need to criticise another that doesn't and to which you have no affiliation.