The Freed Fish

Optional Author's Note: catch-and-release, or fishing only for sport, is the style practiced by the vast majority of fly fishers. Scientific research has revealed that the mortality rate of fish caught and released is quite low.

There is a fish
At the end of a line

That cannot break
Or shake the angle:

The penalty
For a poor decision.

This knot is not,
In this case, the cliché

Of hangman’s noose;
A sentence of death.

The angler casts
Judgment in the stream:

This catch will be
The birth of release.

copyright 2008 by ron P. swegman. all rights reserved.