Kelsey Hambor

Every spring, the fishing opener draws massive crowds across the state. But there’s another perspective on that tradition — one that rarely gets told.

More than half a million Minnesotans hit the water for this year’s fishing opener. For most, it’s a beloved ritual — cold mornings on the lake, coolers stocked, lines cast. But while we’re focused on the catch, there’s an experience unfolding below the surface that most of us never stop to consider: what it’s actually like to be the fish.

From the fish’s point of view, the encounter begins without warning. A baited hook is taken into their mouth. Then comes the prolonged struggle — pulled through the water, unable to escape, fighting with everything they have. By the time they reach the surface, the fish is exhausted, their body flooded with stress hormones, their gills working against air instead of water. This isn’t just discomfort. Research documents intense physiological stress during capture: elevated cortisol, oxygen depletion, tissue damage. Once out of the water, a fish is essentially suffocating. Every second counts.

Catch-and-release is widely seen as the responsible choice — a way to enjoy fishing while minimizing harm. But the story doesn’t end at the moment of release. Hook wounds are real injuries. Punctures to the mouth, throat, gills, or internal organs create open wounds that can take days to weeks to heal for minor injuries — and months for deeper ones from barbed hooks, if they heal at all. Those wounds are entry points for infection, embedded hook material can prolong tissue damage, and the stress of capture suppresses the immune system, making recovery harder. Research has also shown that released fish can experience reduced fitness, behavioral changes, and increased vulnerability to predators — sometimes long after the encounter. Release is a reprieve, not a clean slate.

For a long time, it was easy to dismiss fish suffering on the grounds that fish “don’t really feel things.” That view has been consistently challenged by science. Fish have complex nervous systems. They exhibit learning, memory, and social behavior.

They respond to injury in ways that parallel how other animals respond to pain. That means the experience of being hooked, fought, lifted from the water, handled, and released — or killed — is not neutral. It’s something the fish is going through, and actively trying to escape.

If an activity depends on causing fear, injury, and physiological distress to a sentient animal, it’s worth asking whether it can truly be described as harmless recreation. Seen from the fish’s perspective, catch-and-release is an encounter they didn’t choose and can’t consent to, in an environment where they simply want to exist.

Now that we know, we have the ability and power to do better. And there’s no shortage of ways to enjoy the water — magnet fishing, snorkeling, photography, simply spending a morning on the shore. The joy of being out there doesn’t have to come at another animal’s expense.

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