I’m sure by now that quite a few of you have seen this great picture of President George H. W. Bush and his monstrous tarpon that he was able to land in the Florida Keys recently. It is a gorgeous fish, and the former president even decided to let it go, opting to have a replica made to be displayed instead, and let the fish fight another day. I thought that was very commendable.

In the spirit of true sportsmanship, soon after these pictures were made public, a fishing blog had a post up inquiring as to the legality of the catch. In Florida a tarpon must be tagged before it can be “boated” and at least one blog I came across was screaming foul about the President’s catch and claiming that he and his fishing guide had not tagged the fish properly. Florida state law prohibits possession of a tarpon without having first affixed a $50 tarpon “kill” tag through its jaw, and readers were accusing the former president and his guide of not displaying the proper kill tag. Guess what? Turns out they were wrong. From news-press.com:

Happily, as it turns out, we are not facing the prospect of jailing the Former Leader of the Free World (as memorialized by his Web site, FLFW.com). Hard to see in photos published on the Web, but clearly identifiable in high-resolution images obtained by The News-Press, is a tarpon tag looped through the silver king’s jaw. President Bush appears to have had every right to kill the tarpon in his lap, which reportedly was released alive, in favor of a fiberglass replica to be hung in the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in College Station, Texas.

I just don’t understand why a fellow sportsman would automatically jump to conclusions about another sportman’s actions without having clear evidence that something is in fact not being done legally. I am all for pointing out sportsman who break the law, but to jump to a conclusion because of one picture you saw doesn’t make sense to me.

I have seen this particular type of reaction multiple times. People accusing other people of not wearing orange, because in the picture they posted in the forum they didn’t have orange on. How does one jump to the assumption, that just because in the photo they didn’t have orange on, that they weren’t wearing orange at all? Did they ever think that, just maybe, that person didn’t want their gaudy orange jacket in the photo? How dare they jump to a conclusion without any facts or proof of this person breaking the law? How about a nice “Great deer” comment, instead of automatically making an assumption. Lets all use some common sense people.

I don’t want anyone to think that I am condoning breaking any game laws. That is so far from the truth. What I am saying is that we sportsmen have enough things we need to defend without automatically making an assumption about other sportsman’s ethics, or law-abiding ways, just because of one simple photo.

One picture does not tell the whole story. Next time you want to make an accusation, after only seeing one picture as evidence, take the time it would take to accuse this person of wrongdoing, and write a positive letter to the local newspaper about hunting, and what sportsman contribute to wildlife preservation. In other words–find something constructive to do!

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