Last night I had fish for dinner. It was cod; broiled with salt, pepper, olive oil, and lemon. It was wild and caught from a sustainable fishery. Most importantly, it was delicious.

Eating fish isn’t a typical topic in fly fishing media.

Given, I didn’t get anywhere near my cod while it was still alive. Admittedly there is a disconnect between the paper-wrapped filets I bought at the store and the muscles underlaying the patterns on trout that I fawn over. One is fish. The other is a fish. On the surface that distinction sounds ridiculous. A lot of people don’t understand.

Eating fresh, farmed tilapia at a rural village in Guatemala I saw how confusing this distinction can be. A local and I had been talking, and he knew that I fish for a hobby. Each of us two tilapia in, he asked me how it tasted compared to all the fish I caught in the states. Even if my Spanish was better, I don’t think I could have justified myself enough to assuage his bewilderment.

His circumstances led to the black-and-white thinking that fish are food. In fly fishing culture, our black-and-white thinking says that a good many fish are absolutely not for eating.

I get it. I am outspoken for conservation. I’ve explained to people time and time again what special regulations are, why I fish in these waters on purpose, and that I still have fun. But sometimes I think that pervasive black-and-white dichotomy cuts out an important part of fly fishing and being outdoors in general.

A few years back I organized an event for my church. It was an “Amazing Race” style activity where teams of men, ages 7 to 70, completed various outdoor-centric challenges. The culminating final task was to build a fire, kill a live trout, field dress it, roast it, and consume the cooked fish. Everyone loved it. Not because they got to take the life of a hatchery brown trout or burn stuff, but because it was different. It wasn’t that the process was an unknown commodity. It was something that, for most present, was relegated to the categories of things done by “soldier of fortune types” or “great grandpa.”

This same unfamiliarity and resultant apprehension seems to exist within the fly fishing culture.

Consider this: our goal as fly fishers and conservationists ought to be getting back to the place where the fish are prevalent enough that many anglers can take fish regularly. In an ideal world, there will be a healthy enough ecosystem to support the harvest of wild fish by a group of conscientious people. That is a tall order, but it is optimistic and more rational than sustaining what we have. Plus, it is a return to the way outdoorsmanship has looked for all but the last century.

But for now, go ahead and keep a bucket full of sunfish. Fry up some big, tender catfish fillets. Have your guide put you on a flats fish that, when grilled, will cap off a great day on the water. Fish are special, fish are fun, but fish are food.