I personally tend to claim the bug after I get some progress made on it, to make sure I won't wind up stalling out, but it's not at all uncommon to have people claim and release bugs on and off -- you aren't committing yourself to HAVE TO patch the bug if you assign it to yourself; there's no shame in dropping a bug you don't want to do anymore. So either way is fine!
no subject
Also, have you submitted a CLA yet? :)