How to make sure my keepers from a multi day red lake trip don't cause an issue?

[fish_disco]

Headed up to upper red for 4 days in January with hopes of bringing home a keeper from each day. I'll likely filet them once I get back home but concerned about DNR swinging by on the 4th day while i'm sitting with 10 dead fish on me. How do we make sure things like fish count are communicated properly when a scenario like that occurs?

I'm about to dig into the Minnesota fishing rules and regulations for 2020-2021 to see if there is any information there and I assume with the rentals that thiss scenario isn't uncommon.

[Monticatgeek]

Here is the special regulations for Red Lake :

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fishing/upper-red-lake-regulations.html

here is the entire regulation book :

https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/rlp/regulations/fishing/fishing_regs.pdf#view=fit&pagemode=bookmarks

[esox_xtm]

The way I'm reading the regs you can have no more than 6 fish in your possession at any time. I'm still unsure about how many of those could be over 17"; for sure 1 but really could be two; one from a previous day and one from the current day.

I'd call the MNDNR (888-MINNDNR), explain you want to keep things on the fun and get it from the horses' mouth.

[meandcuznalfy]

Looks like you can have 3 pike only 1 over 40" and 3 walleye only one over 17" for your entire trip, but wouldn't hurt to call a clarify what exactly you can have.

[Rebelss]

I'd call the MNDNR (888-MINNDNR), explain you want to keep things on the fun and get it from the horses' mouth.

That's the only way I'd do it. Some of our regs are pretty confusing. 

[esox_xtm]

I'll stand corrected. Thanks meandcuznalfy! 



As I read this again your possession limit IS your bag limit. Which means anyone in MN that has fish in the freezer is probably violating. In WI the possession limit is twice the daily bag limit. Reb's right, it's kinda confusing. Definitely call and get it from the horse's whatever...

Be willing to bet that guys coming back from Winnie with a literal truck load of perch in the 70's drove the proscriptive limit.

[Rebelss]

OH GOD NO!!! Don't EVER forget about fish ya stuck in the freezer in Minnysoda; they ARE part of yer limit! You'll end up in the pokey!  Seen way too many guys do that! 

[meandcuznalfy]

No problem, I had to read that part of the regs myself. Possession limits create lots of confusion.

[esox_xtm]

OH GOD NO!!! Don't EVER forget about fish ya stuck in the freezer; they ARE part of yer limit! You'll end up in the pokey!  Seen way too many guys do that! 

All depends on the law of the land. Almost caught a ticket for "mutilation of fish" over in MI last year. Cleaned a couple on the ice so we wouldn't have to do it when we got back to the cabin. After all, that's drinkin' and eatin' time. Got stopped by I CO on our way off, he asked how was fishing, blabbermouth me said it was slow but we kept a couple. "Can I see 'em?" Ahhhhhhhhhh, the fillets. "That's gonna be a problem".

So he explained the regulation to us while we hung our collective heads wondering how much these two fish were gonna cost us. Never got there. He also noticed that our guides' Argo did not have a current OTR sticker on it. We got to choose from the two tickets. The lesser was the unstickered OTR even though he had the sticker at home and not on the vehicle AND he'd trailered it to the boat launch and only driven it about 40 yards across the parking lot and not on any city, county or state road. Sigh... We paid the guide's ticket for $100. It was cheaper for us and better for him. That said, it was the best part of his tip.

Call.

[Rebelss]

I did mean in Minnesota obviously.  Correction to OP made.

[nocturnalmotors]

From what I understand, your daily and possession limit is the same. Keep your guts when you do a fish fry in case you get checked. The fuzzy part for me is getting rid of the guts the following day and starting over. Does that start at 12:01 am? 24 hours since reduced to possession?

[stout93]

Unbelievable these idiots at the DNR can't create/write regulations that people understand.

I'm guessing if you had 10 people from the 'general' fishing public read these regs, you'll get 5-6 different answers.

And when I say 'general' fishing public, I'm not talking about the guys that fish every other day or visit fishing forums and the like. I'm talking about the average joe that goes out a 7-8 times a year (summer and winter).