https://turnto10.com/news/local/ridem-issues-fines-for-undersized-stripped-bass-seizes-gear

Always thought it might get our poacher's attention if more gear was seized. Might also make for a good annual auction.

I don’t know Jag, there was a thread on here a while back where several posters felt some guys should have been shot for exceeding the limit on crappie. Those fast reproducing fish are serious business.

Well, we can rest well knowing the fish cops are protecting the fish.

Should’ve taken the boat as well! Maybe they’ll think twice next time...

Should double the fines for that crappy job of filleting.

Striper is good eating btw.

Looks like he used a hatchet and skill saw on that fillet job..........

Theoretical question on slot limit fish. You’re trolling and one that’s 1” under the slot hammers your plug. You get him to the boat and measure him, when doing so you realize he’s bleeding like a stick pig and you ripped two of his gills when you set the hook after he inhaled the bait. He ain’t going to make it, not a chance. Is the right thing to do to toss him overboard to become a floater or count him toward your limit and discreetly filet him back home and enjoy eating him?

I know what the right thing to do is to my mind and I’m a big proponent of C&R.

Jag? I thought you drank warm beer and ate mudcats?????

Just joking brother! Happy 4th!

Oily if the salt version is anything like the stocked lake fish. Lots of lake fish are much better.

I do eat the whites (great table fare) and hybrids. I give the stripers away.

Here on the east coast, they’re excellent eating but we don’t eat them until they travel down River to the salt

Yep

I learned my lesson as a kid when camped by Grandads pond. Man, those polywogs were freaking bad.

Big fat blues off the lake at LaGrange are hard to clean enough fat off to eat or I need instruction from Jeff.

High fin blues off Sam Rayburn are unreal good.

I'm thinking only Germans drink warm beer. Well, and Roger.

Now that is good to know. I've tried slicing off the bloodline, but even then the whiter meat is oily.

Defund the Possum Sheriffs.

They're ocean run stripers here. They come up the river to spawn then head back down through the Golden Gate. Not oily at all IMHO. A lot like rock cod.

I've never eaten a lake striper.

It pains me but I throw back all undersize floaters. Fish cops around here would write you up for sure. Who needs that hassle? Not worth it to me.

Yep.

Toss it back unless not wasting a fish is worth risking a ticket and hassle. If it’s in your possession you’re getting cited good intentions or not

Just another instance of what's legal isn't necessarily what's moral. I hated to unhook Canary's off the coast just to watch them turn into Seagull food, but who needed the grief from the possum sheriffs. At least now you can keep 'em. Mostly...

Sounds good.

You need to go fish Atlantic stripuhs and blues with Kamo if he’ll take you.

Beats anything out of inland lakes.

yup.

Big difference between what you’re describing and keeping a mess of undersized fish.

You guys know that’s a very common excuse when somebody wants to keep an undersized fish or ten.

Toss the smallie back in. Mother Nature does not waste anything.

Well, a guy here told me my granddad was an "entitled piece of schit' for daring to upsurp fishing rules in 1930 rural Clackamas County Oregon to put up some jars up for the winter... So, yah shoot those bastids.

There ya go!

Oh, I agree, everyone else shouldnt keep one for that very reason, but it's just somehow different when I gill hook one, because i know i did it by accident.

Sure I get what you’re saying and cheaters are always going to cheat. But say I kill 5 sub legal fish in my quest for my 10 fish limit, wouldn’t it make more sense to eat them and count them against my limit than to toss them and kill 15 that day instead of just the 10 fish limit.

Most fish limits are arbitrarily set at what nanny state thinks you need to be able to keep and has nothing to do with biology. Toss the undersized fish back regardless of health and take your limit of legal fish.

Oh I know, game departments are usually so out of touch it’s impossible to figure out. I rarely keep a limit of anything, if I need a bunch of fish I’ll hit our private “lake” where there isn’t a limit, otherwise I just enjoy fishing.
But on the subject of arbitrary limits the limit on crappie in Oklahoma is 37 per day. Been that way forever but it’s always seemed like an odd number to me.

Here is a picture of a very nice legal hybrid that was caught two weeks ago.

https://magazine.outdoornebraska.gov/2020/06/stop-the-presses-big-fish-second-week-in-a-row/

Kid, since when did game and fish start considering what made more sense.

I dont think Buchanan has any wipers that big. Darn.

Looks like some stripers I've killed, and some found dead and floating with a white in its throat.

I wonder if they fishermen could get out of a ticket if they started a riot?

Whoa. How'd that eat, Rog.

I done toldja above!

it was real good.

If there's a trip limit there shouldn't be a size limit. You can't believe how many red snapper are wasted in the Gulf of Mexico because of the sze limit. Big enough to bite, big enough to eat.

Going back probably 15 plus years now, the Wardens stopped a couple guys leaving the north Maine woods with a few hundred small brook trout in their possession. I think they’d only been there two days, three at the most. They’d been fishing some of the smaller brooks and rivers in the area. You know the hurting a couple guys with a can of worms can do to to a small stream full of wild brookies? Takes quite a while to recover from that. Do it long enough to the wrong stream and it may not recover at all.

Yes some regulations seem arbitrary. But if you don’t think you can hurt a fragile eco system by taking too many fish, you might want to read up on the subject. Some guys think of rivers and streams like a magicians hat. You can just take as much as you want and there’s always more where that came from. Doesn’t work like that.

If they caught a couple hundred in two days, chances are those brookies weren't about to go extinct.

Try to keep up. It’s not about “going extinct”. It’s about taking a [bleep] load of fish out of specific bodies of water with limited resources and ability to produce said fish. Unless you figure you or they were entitled to to do it just because?

Roger knows what good fisch tastes lak.

Speckled trout's, crappies, white bass, flounder, sheepshead, bluegill, red snapper, brown snapper, white snapper,....

Grew up fishing the Delaware bay. Over fishing decimated it. Weakfish were first. Then the Stripers went. Then the Drum fish. Next went the founder. Now Omega seafood is targeting the bunker (menhaden) using spotter planes and setting their nets at the mouth of the bay. Amazing fishery has been systematically destroyed because of mismanagement. the comms can net tiny fish that never grow to keeper size for recreational fishermen. Example summer flounder in the bay 14” for comms, 17” for recreational. Typically a flounder doesn’t reach 15” until it’s 3rd summer. Doesn’t take long to wipe out the young ones the recreational guys throwback. there’s plenty of spiney dog fish and Brown sharks to catch but I wouldn’t eat a dogfish and browns are protected. I guess that’s the reason theyre the only thing left in big numbers.

I can remember when there was no limit on Crappie in Tennessee, and the possum cops would tell us not to throw any back, no matter how small they were. The TVA lakes were terribly overpopulated, and they figured the only way to let any of them grow to any size was to thin the herd. Then some idiot got the bright idea to stock ocean stripers in fresh water- - - - -those things are eating machines, and the crappie became their primary food source! Bad move!

If you think bustin somebodys ass over that is ok. You probaly can't fish worth a [bleep] yourself .

So now I'm "entitled." That's funny all I did was make an observation. I've fished plenty of streams where catching a hundred + small fish in a day was no big deal. The thing those streams all had in common was, removing fish didn't hurt the population. One of those streams was in New Mexico and the limit for brown trout was 32, And they were all stunted. It ain't rocket science.

Got it. Fish are an infinite resource and you know better than the wildlife biologists that spend half their lives studying those streams...

Must be different in New England where they are native. Around here, brookies are an invasive species. They are tough on our native dolly varden.

More than a few folk out here have lost their boat and truck after stepping over the line while salmon fishing.

Russians are often busted illegally taking fish with nets etc...

Wagon burners take whatever the fugk they want and nobody can or will touch them.

Yes they are. Difference is they belong up there. Out here they are invasive. I think he may have missed the part where I wrote North Maine Woods...

Our first conservation effort:

As 12 year old kids we bunny hunted with 22LR's in Va at every opportunity mostly kicking them out of hedgerows and trying to hit running rabbits. Rarely scored. One day we decided to use shotguns and got a boatload of rabbits. Next weekend we ran our usual route and there was not a rabbit to be seen. Shotguns were instantly banned, as we discovered it was the hunt not the score that we were after.

No, that's not what I said. But I think you know that. You're a very dramatic kind of fellow, aren't you.

Not trying to be an azzhole, but this is a real pet peeve of mine. I’ve spent a lot of time assisting biologists with stream restoration projects, Populations counts, restocking with an eye towards natural reproduction, etc. only to have some jack hole who thinks game laws only apply to other guys, clean out a stream with nothing more than a can of worms and pack of eagle claws. They’ll snag, net and even shoot at spawning brook trout because they really do think they’re and infinite resource. They’re not.

Sometimes you can achieve your goal without really trying. But I get it now, it's those damn worm dunkers that really get your goat, eh?

But I think there's been a mistake here. You've mistaken me for someone who gives a flying f*ck about your pet peeves and/or the fishing methods you approve of.

And a GFY to you too... obviously reading comprehension is not your strong suit and you seem to read more into everything than what is actually said. Why waste my time, you’re too dense to reason with,..

BTW, dumb ass, I aprove of all fishing methods as long as they’re done responsibly, I partake in them all myself. Just spent the past month worm dunking with my grandsons and had a blast.

Like I said, you’re just too fugging stupid to even understand the point I’m making. Welcome to my ignore list jackass...

As the 'Fire turns....

One poacher's excuse. Uhhh, not everybody is doing it, just me, so it doesn't make any or much difference, duhh.

Where you live at bro.

Round here, everybody doin' it.

Well, not really.

But, you have that idea right. I mean, what's it gonna hurt if I take a few undersized, or a few over the limit, or a big adult over the slot limit?

Sheesh is right, as per the title.

Grew up down in SoCal, rarely did we hook a halibut when fishing in the bays. The State instituted a 21" min size limit to allow the fish to grow to adulthood and spawn a time or two before being subject to harvest. If not mistaken, California halibut mature around 18", so a 21" limit gave them a season or two to spawn.

10 years later when I fished in San Diego bay, it was uncommon to NOT hook halibut, mainly shorts but the occasional legal one. Seems to me it worked pretty well.

Similar thing happened in Chesapeake Bay too. Years ago the various jurisdictions there had different size limits. One or two had a size limit the allowed the take of fish that weren't of spawning age. Populations in the Bay were on the verge of crashing. Seems, again as I recall, the interested parties got together and used a limit that allowed fish to spawn at least once before being eligible for harvest. Worked pretty good from what I've heard.

Imagine shooting spotted fawns and seeing what happens to you local deer population.

I agree.

We don't throw small fish back if they are fugged up.

Thank you!





To be clear, I'm not advocating poaching, I understand the need for bag and creel limits, and I rarely keep trout any more. I just don't like sanctimonious or pompous people.

And I'll say it again, I've fished bodies of water that were over-populated with stunted trout, all the same size. Putting any kind of dent in those populations is a good thing, and most often the species is brook trout. They spawn when they're 1-2 years old in some places.

Fly fishermen in general in the midwest are elitist dicks. I had one tell me to get out of my own stream one time, he didnt realize that we owned the access around it (99.9% in wisconsin is public land access to trout streams) To make a point, we told him to take his ass home and not come back, for the rest of the season we wouldnt let anyone in there that had a fly rod, only grandpas with kids fished that creek. Sometimes the letter of the law "misspells" the intent. Generally im all for following bag limits and C&R but fish that are gonna die dont play into that for me. Same as I dont have a problem with someone down on their luck shooting a doe out of season to feed their family.

Prezactly, I hope they confisticated His filet knife, if that’s what he used.

I could do better than that, schit faced, with a dull knife In the dark and blindfolded.

Jim, that's a great way to do things, and as a fish biologist I agree with not wasting the resource.

The biggest issue is the "lowest common denominator" deal.

I'm sure your family would just keep injured fish. Unfortunately, there are those folks who's attitude is " I paid for a license, rod, bait, lures, gas for the boat. I'll just "injure" the 27 shorts we caught and take them home"

It's the same for the commercial folks who have to toss "bycatch". If it weren't for the few who would target "bycatch" because they might bring a better price, it likely wouldn't be an issue.

Re: the size limit thing, it's hard to get across to some people. Fishing a jetty down in SoCal once and reeled up a short halibut, 19" maybe 20". Got ready to toss it back and had multiple folks tell me I was crazy, they'd take that in a minute, etc etc. A few were from SE Asia (think this was in the late 70's) and I'm sure they saw any protein source as edible.

I think the best folks I've had to deal with were in the Pac NW. "My daddy and granddaddy used to pitchfork them salmons up on the bank. And now I have to only take one a day and record it on a card, and when I reach "x" for the season I have to stop".

Try getting it thru to them that if their ancestors had not pitchforked them up to the bank, that there weren't fishwheels and dams every 40-80 miles on the big rivers, that there wasn't logging and overgrazing in the spawning and rearing areas, that there weren't 10 different species of introduced predatory fish in the rivers along with non-native crawdads in some places, that there weren't as many leaking septic tanks along the spawning streams, or folks tossing the trash in the nearest defile so that the spring flood could wash it all down to the big river where it would never be seen again (by them at least), and maybe mostly when paps and pawpaw were around the population of the PNW was all of a million or so, total, including Injuns. Oops, I forgot hydraulic mining in some watersheds, that never hurt a stream for spawning, eh?

Some of those folks look back with glazed over eyes and say "I still think I should be able to catch as many salmon as I can. It's not like I waste 'em, we smoke and can them".

As someone else here mentioned, tossing an injured "short" back will not mean it goes to waste. Ma Nature doesn't waste much.

If a party keeps a couple of dead fish for a fry, they wont need to kill as many more for dinner.

^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^

Late to jump in here. Not preaching or anything, but the truly moral and ethical way to deal with the undersized but mortally wounded fish is to throw it back (as the law demands) but also count it towards your limit. In other words, to consider your daily limit as the number of fish killed - not just how many taken home.

This is sport fishing, not subsistence fishing. For most of us, anyway.

jag, that works great in principle.

the problem is too many unprincipled people in the world.

There are those who would keep a lip hooked, lightly played, still healthy "short", which could be released unharmed with an >80% chance of survival, and say it was injured or dead when they brought it up.

Kind of like wounding an animal on a hunt only to never find it? Tag filled, right.

A bit, Val, but not quite. A probably wounded but not recovered game animal may well either have been only slightly grazed or missed entirely. But a bleeding fish is probably a goner. And more importantly it was "in hand" to determine that.

Californians are always most concerned with following government regulations.....

Good eating fish! One of my favorites!
Cod and halibut are up there on my list to......

Dryfly,

Not fish, not your state.


I have had a top Game biologist in this state tell me that they
are sent to do population studies, and make reports and recommendations.

The Game Commission very frequently makes political, not scientist based
decisions. And seasons/limits do not reflect the science. All I will say, they might still be doing it, and need the job.

Dillon,

Totally get it, and I agree. I’ve seen it first hand, especially in Maine. The problem is that sometimes the recommendations they ignore aren’t in favor of the game. They favor the bag limits for the takers. Regardless of who they favor it is better than the alternative, which is no limits at all. Even with limits you’re going to get those people I alluded to before, who don't think the limits apply to them. They figure they’re the only ones who think that way so there no harm. Problem is, right after he takes thirty or or forty fish out of a brook, pond, or river, along comes another guy with the same mentality right behind him. Then another, then another. See what I mean? Can’t tell you how many guys I’ve run into on the water that would scratch their heads and tell you about all the fish they used to pull out of a given area but couldn’t figure out why the place had tanked.

That’s the issue. Lots of guys think they know better than the folks who actually study this stuff. We have examples of them right here. I think I hurt one or two feelings in this thread. Has nothing to do with how you fish. Has everything to do with how many you keep vs. how many the resource can absorb losing in a given time. Some places are over run with stunted fish and need liberal to no limits. Another can’t sustain any and maybe should be C&R. That’s what biologists get paid to figure out.

One of my favorite spots had a one fish limit, and was artificial lure only. Had a local population of some of the nicest wild ‘bows I’ve seen anywhere, along with huge native Brook Trout. Some moron gave the place place up on the net on an old fishing site and the place blew up. Used to find empty plastic worm containers all over the place. We begged the wardens to patrol it more often and they did the best they could but the spot was pretty a pretty long haul off the main onto logging roads to get to. They just didn't have the resources to patrol it effectively.

Went from a paradise to a Schitt hole within a couple years.

Nah,

most of the ones I know here are more concerned about doing the right thing.

Do you folks have fish in Iowa? Any cold mountain streams there for trout? Any native salmon? An ocean perhaps?

That's what we get for having a representative type of government.

If not mistaken, there are still counties in Cali who's Supervisors determine whether or not there will be an antlerless deer hunt. Even against the desires of the game agencies (and insurance companies?).

In areas of NW coast of Cali, back in the 90's, it was very politically charged to suggest a moratorium on fishing salmon and steelhead in order to allow sufficient adults to return and perhaps rebuild the population. Tackle merchants, motels, campgrounds etc needed the business of fishing folks every year. Never mind those folks might not have a chance in hell of catching a fish. Just don' t close the season.

Huh. I guess its no big deal.


I figured I killed the dang thing...we had better eat it. Didn't know the right thing to do would be to toss it back.

Not worried about getting a ticket....however I suppose some would.

Where you live I might not worry about getting a ticket either. And in the real world eating it is the right thing to do. In my opinion of course.

You know the judge up there in case you ever do get caught? Maybe plead morality and good conservation practices?

I know people.....thats why I am not worried about eating a small fish I might catch.


I would just have to make a couple calls.


There are fish cops here too....lots of them.

I will throw them back then.


Wouldn't feel right.....but its no problem.