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I made the mistake of trying to clean a bowfin....once... never again 🤣 Friggin' ribs from gill plate clear down to the dang tail. Love catching them, though. One of the rivers around here is thick with them in the spring during high water.I mostly target redhorse, buffalo, and carp with an occasional bowfin/bass trip during open water season. Nice to see someone else giving the underdogs some love.
Maine waters are like this. The regs in Maine are ridiculous.
I hear the fishing is really great though. Many Vermonters that do get the chance to fish Maine want to go back and live there. Vermont has the most liberal bag limit for brook trout....12 fish, that is one thing we are proposing to change to align with the other New England states. 8 fish total whether they are brook, brown, or rainbows. Currently you can have 12 trout, but only 6 can be rainbows or browns, the rest can be brookies. We are also the only state where you can shoot pike in the springtime during the spawn, from deer stands, into the water. That a good old tradition up here!
I have no issues with calling a warden, what so ever.More good would be done with a phone call (in this situation) than all the C&R you could do yourself.
It amazes me when I go ice fishing to a local harbor on Lake Erie and people are keeping buckets of bluegill. Really, you don’t need that many and by keeping buckets, I guarantee the population will go down. You can see the issue of overfishing just on Lake Erie itself. There used to be blue pike, I never have seen one, but overfishing decimated the species.
When the walleye fishing was down on Lake Erie, people started keeping smallmouth and almost decimated that population, but now it is coming back, as the walleye fishing is fantastic.
Yellow Perch, used to be so easy to catch in Lake Erie and the last three years not as much. You just can’t keep taking and taking and except the populations to continue. There needs to be strict limits, but fair and they need to be enforced. And sorry, you should not be filling your buddy’s freezers too and those people are the ones responsible if we see the fishery go down.
I love Ontario, Canada’s rules on limits, size limits on panfish, etc. You go over the limit their and you can get huge fines, boats and everything taken away. We need more States to do that.
Bluegill’s need limits in Ohio and size limits too. Sorry for the rant, but it is so annoying to see buckets of bluegills just getting taken.
waste of time to call. they don't even do anything when you car or home is broken into for cripes sakes! they sure cant do anything about that or even attempt to for that matter. the law is a waste of time.
Boy you must not have dealt with a Michigan dnr officer.... Them boys dont play no games... Ive called the dnr a couple times to get an officer out and they always show up.
My experience in MN is the same. They take their job VERY seriously.
no im in Indiana not Michigan. very limited on officer numbers here.and call you to tell you what they found? baaaah, that's a joke here. already been here that's why I have my opinion.
that is another thing. I have had law enforcement lie to me a couple time over the years. so I don't trust any of them anymore. what is he going to do if they only walk off with a limit every time. unless he set there and watches them come back numerous times in a day they can never get caught.
wardens will take to the trees during the Maumee walleye runs. They would never get away with that kind of stuff there.
Here rivers are not stocked so the fish are wild fish, perhaps not native, but wild. I c&r river caught fish (trout). Lakes here are stocked, some may have natural reproduction, some do not. I generally keep what I catch if I'm icefishing. Some lakes have booming populations of non native fish that are not stocked - I'll keep those if thats what we're targeting (we have lake superior whitefish in a few lakes for example). We have northern pike now in most of our rivers and lakes in western, MT. They really don't belong here, but they are here. I don't release pike, ever.Seems that individual bodies of water need specific plans at times. There are some smaller lakes around with masive overpopulations of yellow perch and not enough fishing or predators to control them. The bucket brigade has put in pike to 'help' so now we have pike and stunted perch. Seems there ought to be a way to manage it better, but I don't know how.
Agree with specific waters regulation.It isn't rocket science. It's done elsewhere with success each time it's tried to my knowledge. It's up to the state to do the job.
One of the issues is wanton waste laws. You can go catch a bucket full of 5" perch if you want - but who wants to deal with them? Its illegal to leave them on the ice (though some do), and its illegal to throw them in the trash.What's the responsible thing to do with 5" perch? What's the legal thing to do with 5" perch? Last year someone came up with the idea that they could be donated to a raptor recovery center - but it turns out that's illegal as well and they can't accept them.
In the little lake I'm thinking of some bucket biologist introduced northern pike to solve the problem. Now the lake that used to be a pretty quiet little lake with some nice trout and a few largemouth bass is full of stunted perch and a few pike. Yay! I don't remember if the perch were legally introduced or if that was more help from the bucket brigade. (Looking at stocking history no recorded stocking of perch as far back as about 1960)
I saw possession limits mentioned a few times. They do vary widely by state so make sure you check it. Not just in what the number is but what actually applies to the limit. In some states, fish you have at your home in your freezer count towards that limit. In others, its only fish you have with you in the field or in transport and fish in your freezer at home do not count. Idaho is that way for example. We have a 3X the daily limit for possession but fish at home in your freezer on your property do not apply to that limit.