MT Bait Regulation Questions/Comments

[MTangler]

Thats funny lipripr I was thinking the same thing. While at fresno I was jigging for perch and kept getting a few bites but they were tight lipped so I switched to a smaller jig. Then the bites went crazy, they were minnows! I caught a few of them on my jig pole and the gf and I thought why cant we just put a few of them under a tipup? Well if we did and the warden checked our bait....we would have probably got a ticket.

MTA

[lipripr]

MTAngler.

  Sounds like the "ticket" could occur. Even tho a person didnt physically catch the live bait, its still not legal to use. Which after thinking about it makes sense. The ticket should be given to the perch, after all they're the ones that presented the tasty little minnow! Anyway, I'm guilty of this. Oops! Guess I'll let the miinow die b4 using next time.

[Walltrout]

Thats funny lipripr I was thinking the same thing. While at fresno I was jigging for perch and kept getting a few bites but they were tight lipped so I switched to a smaller jig. Then the bites went crazy, they were minnows! I caught a few of them on my jig pole and the gf and I thought why cant we just put a few of them under a tipup? Well if we did and the warden checked our bait....we would have probably got a ticket.

MTA

I think you would have been ok to use it on Fresno which is in the Eastern District as long as it was a nongame fish minnow.  If they were perch minnows however, it would have been a ticket.

• Where live fish may be used as bait (see list below under Live Bait), legal nongame fish
may be taken for use as bait in the following manner:
- with hook and line; or
- with seines no larger than 12 feet by 4 feet; or
- with minnow traps (the dimensions shall not exceed 24 inches x 12 inches x 12 inches); or
- with cast nets (maximum 6-foot radius) and dip nets (no larger than 3 feet x 3 feet).

[FishN4Eyes]

I think you would have been ok to use it on Fresno which is in the Eastern District as long as it was a nongame fish minnow.  If they were perch minnows however, it would have been a ticket.

• Where live fish may be used as bait (see list below under Live Bait), legal nongame fish
may be taken for use as bait in the following manner:
- with hook and line; or
- with seines no larger than 12 feet by 4 feet; or
- with minnow traps (the dimensions shall not exceed 24 inches x 12 inches x 12 inches); or
- with cast nets (maximum 6-foot radius) and dip nets (no larger than 3 feet x 3 feet).

Key part of this reg is "where live fish can be used as bait" which in Fresno, it can't.

Apparently since the Milk River flows in from Canada they won't let you use live bait.   Drives me nuts, Fresno is a heck of a lot closer to me than Nelson.

No offense WT.   Maybe I missed your point?

[urbanlegend]

As I am sure you will all notice I am a rooky to the posting but the subject matter drew me in.  I am from eastern MT and grew up fishing live bait.  Living in Helena is frustrating as I would love to actually catch a walleye through the ice.  However, the benefit of live bait, while increasing our catch rates, may ultimately come at a high cost.  It seems harmless to have a few extra minnows around but ecosystems are a fragile thing and very difficult to manage/manipulate.  If you want to see a great example look at Flathead lake and the shrimp-laketrout issue.  Who would have ever imagined that something as simple as adding a few shrimp to a monstrous sized lake could have such far reaching implications.   My point....FWP has a science based reason for restricting bait and it is or the sportsman that they are managing canyon ferry to support.  As for certified bait I have been trapping minnows most of my life and while I have never set a trap in the canyon ferry watershed I can't imagine that it would provide adequate non-game minnows to supply the demand......costs for bait would be ridiculous.  So my two cents (or buck thirty by now) let's all admit it we are out there to fish and not catch.  Be safe.

[Bullelk34]

 Wyoming has a successful certified bait program, and that would work just as well here. As far as there not being enough bait to meet demand, I think there would be plenty, again just like in Wyoming. I've done a fair share of minnow trapping too, and down by Billings/Huntley we could seine enough minnows in 2 hours to last the whole season. When you consider all of the back water sloughs and creeks in any given watershed, there are way more minnows than you could ever sell for bait.
 I'm all for "science based" management, but what FWP is doing is "suspicion based" management. They want to avoid the spread of species, and I agree with that. But restricting bait use by honest fishermen isn't the answer in my opinion.

[Bullelk34]

urbanlegend- have you tried using a minnow head on a buckshot for walleyes? We catch 99% of our walleyes through the ice on that setup, perch-glow or orange-glow.

[Walltrout]

Key part of this reg is "where live fish can be used as bait" which in Fresno, it can't.

Apparently since the Milk River flows in from Canada they won't let you use live bait.   Drives me nuts, Fresno is a heck of a lot closer to me than Nelson.

No offense WT.   Maybe I missed your point?

No , it was me who was confused.  So I was looking at the regulations and I could not find Fresno on the list of water bodies with exceptions to the standard regulations. I missed  the list of water bodies where live bait is allowed and Fresno was not on the list.  I guess its a good thing I havn't fished up there for  years.  I might have gotten myself in trouble.    Thanks for staightening me out!

[jayjjetplane]

This seems to be a good spot to post my question, although it may be a bit off topic.

Does anyone know if a spear hole with a decoy down it would count as a line in the water? I always error on the safe side and count it as one of my set lines. The decoy has no hooks on it.  Anybody checked on this before?
     

[icing_perch]

The decoy doesn't count as a line but the spear does.