Catch and release, discussed

I'm a rank amateur fisherman, but like just about anyone, I like the sensation of fish on the hook and whether it will be successfully reeled in.   Hence, I am inclined to sometimes watch fishing videos, or even take a brief look at Shroom's live fishing streams, if its late and I'm scrolling through Youtube aimlessly.  (I'm also curious to see the size of fish in certain places - such as the Brisbane River - as a marker of the environmental health of an area.)

But, I'm starting to be bothered by the point of fishing for mere "catch and release" purposes - especially when they are using live bait for the exercise, as that Shroom increasingly does.  

As I have said many times in the past, in the context of vegan/vegetarian curiosity, I'm never going to worry about whether something like a prawn or oyster is conscious enough to fret about its early demise at my hands, be it for me or a fish to eat.   And I know that big fish eat other fish, and life is tough that way under the sea.

But - it still seems to me a tad perverse to get a small live fish, impale it on a hook or two in such a way that it is kept alive for a while, and use that as bait for a big fish which you only intend reeling in, perhaps measuring, and letting go.   It just seems too much like the infliction of pain on something for pure entertainment purposes.   Implicit in this is that I feel people should have concern over how a small fish feels when it is impaled through its body - but yeah, it seems reasonable to me to have some misgiving about the way it squirms while being hooked up.

Of course, you can also argue that catch and release using any form of bait is inflicting unnecessary mouth pain on the fish that is caught, even though most survive it and presumably heal.   But it's the live bait idea that clearly pushes it over the edge into "objectable" to me.   To be clear: if it were involving fishing to catch food to eat, I would have substantially less concern: it's the lack of a point beyond entertainment that makes live bait catch and release a nagging problem.

I guess I shouldn't expect people commenting on live streams to have the same misgivings, but I do wonder whether the same thought occurs to anyone else.   It seems an intuitively correct position to take, but it seems few people think this way.