First off - I rarely buy fish other than tuna and salmon or white(boring) fish such as cod or halibut due to preferences of other members of my family. At restaurants I stay away from swordfish, marlin, etc.
I do my best to release each and every bluefish I catch and each and every striper over 36". As far as I'm concerned stripers in the range 30-34" are fair game as are flounder, bonito and spring stocked trout.
Fair game implies I'm interested in eating fish in the next 36 hours and have other mouths to feed. I've looked a number of tasty 30" stripers in the eye; smiled at them and put them back because the timing wasn't right.
On the other hand; given the right timing, when a 30" fish comes into the boat, I don't even hesitate; its treated as dinner and dispatched quickly. Likewise bonito are immediately bled and iced with nary a thought.
I just released a 14" brown trout yesterday because its been in a marshy stream behind a couple condo developments, a gas station and various other strip mall establishments all season, accumulating PCB's and other toxins. If I caught a 30" striper 10 mi
les up the Merrimac, I'd release that also.
I guess my summary is that I'm not going to hold back on taking a prime eating fish if one comes by; I'm not out to keep everything that i can, but I'm not going to get hung up in false morality if I keep and kill a fish.
L.'