Fishing: free food but is it worth it?

As my quest for a clear conscience continues, I’m delving deeper and deeper into the world of ethics. I’ve found myself in the mine field of food ethics again and have opened up a whole new can of worms: I went fishing for the first time on the weekend. The idea of catching your own dinner really appeals to me, especially as its free food but knowing that a fish has had a hook through its mouth, which has to be ripped out doesn’t sit well. I suppose if you then kill and eat that fish it’s justifiable, it’s far more humane than what occurs at a slaughter house. Plus, it’s a wild fish rather than farmed where the fish spend their lives swimming in their own excrement with dead fish and a poor quality of life (not that quality of life is considered with fish). At least a fish straight from the sea is fresh (you can smell it) and the issue of food miles is non-existent but cost-wise it’s probably not worth it, unless you can find your own bait too. If you don’t mind spending five hours of your weekend on a cold beach watching a rod bobbing in the breeze without thinking that a trip to the fishmonger would have been easier then its probably worthwhile! Having said that, I’d go again. I can imagine it’s the same feeling you get when you serve fresh vegetables from your garden as you dish up your fish dinner, and no amount of shivering could lessen that pride.