Eagle feed vs wanton waste

[MT204]

lake mary is overpopulated with stunted perch

Reading all the posts of 10-13" perch coming out of the lake I'm wouldn't say that.

[andercee]

I say never leave a fish to waste on the ice.  You wouldn't shoot a deer and leave that for the wolves, etc. 

[bowhtr]

This is straight from the FWP:

To answer your questions, there are three options to choose from when dealing with the dilemma of small fish caught in deep water.  The first option is to keep the fish.  It is understandable that it is quite a task to have to clean such a small fish for such a miniscule amount of meat, but ethically and legally, if the fish has died while on the water or ice, you must keep it.  If you discard the fish or feed it to eagles or any other scavenger, then you can be charged with waste of game fish.  The second option is to put the fish back down the hole.  Often times the fish will survive and swim away and in that case, that is fine.  However, if the fish turns belly up and is obviously not going to survive, you are again ethically and legally obligated to keep the fish.  The third option involves a procedure described at the bottom of page 9 in the 2010 Montana fishing regulations.  It describes a procedure for releasing a fish in deep water that allows it’s air bladder to be recompressed.  Also check http://www.walleyesforever.com/info/release.html for a further description and an image of what the release aid looks like.  Finally, Montana does not address the size of a fish in regards to it being determined as edible or not.  Regardless of size, all game fish caught and killed must be kept and consumed.
 
Hope this helps,
 
 
 
Kevin J. Cook
State Game Warden
MT FWP
930 Custer Ave. W.
Helena, MT 59620
406-495-3264

[Papa John]

Boy! I see a bunch of eagles out there with long faces......  Back to eating roadkill.

[coldcreekchris]

Boy! I see a bunch of eagles out there with long faces......  Back to eating roadkill.

we only wish we could be like eagles....with calfing season upon us...snow on the ground makes for easy pheasant...a couple yrs ago there was some well respected raptor recovery people helping a seemingly injured golden eagle to health...they were worried he/she couldn't fly..they proddled and probed...what was the problem??poison???...well after a couple days..the goldie flew away....the cause? he/she had gorge himself on groundhogs/prarrie squirrrels...and was so loaded he couldn't get off the ground....the eagles are doing just fine....no need to make em any more lazy by throwin em perch!!!!

[Papa John]

Didn't say we should feed 'em perch. It was a light hearted comment........

[fish to live]

Reading all the posts of 10-13" perch coming out of the lake I'm wouldn't say that.

most don't how to read a tape and ya their is to many small fish their for they will never get a lot of big ones, i know they were illegally put in lmr so whats the big? don't leave a pile  of small ones but a couple never hurt!

[Aaron072]

walter would help

[andercee]

Boy! I see a bunch of eagles out there with long faces......  Back to eating roadkill.

I saw a bald eagle fishing on an open part of Belt Creek on Sunday.  I'm sure they're eating fine. 

[PROMO]

biologists told me that we are overpopulated with eagles here because of bison harvests, the eagles feed on the gut piles and aren't moving as much as they are supposed to, so they don't need any of my fish

[fishin247]

Just an aside, it is kind of amazing when you think about it: twenty-thirty years ago it was a huge deal when you saw a bald eagle, now its still cool, but I've seen how many in the last year? One just a few weeks ago on a streey sign in Bozeman. Goes to show you what feeding em the little perch does

[Cornbread]

Just an aside, it is kind of amazing when you think about it: twenty-thirty years ago it was a huge deal when you saw a bald eagle, now its still cool, but I've seen how many in the last year? One just a few weeks ago on a streey sign in Bozeman. Goes to show you what feeding em the little perch does

I was telling my kids that very thing the other day. There has been a huge recovery in a very short period of time respectively for large raptors in my lifetime (35 years). I didn't see my first golden eagle until I was an adult, contrasted with my youngest kids who have seen many just in the past few months alone.

[PyroZuki]

We went coyote huntin yesterday, and saw at least 20 bald eagles. At one point, we saw 8 bald eagles and about 30 crows on a train kill. We have them all over around Drummond. There are a lot of cattle afterbirth piles around there that keeps them close.

Pyro

[kingling]

i have the same problem with catching rainbows out of the Jefferson river you catch 5 rainbows to one brown and you can only keep browns so when a rainbow swallows your hook and is diein you have to let it go when i could take it home and feed it to my kid. i dont agree with that i think it should be the other way around you should be able to keep a couple rainbows there are plenty of them in that river. seems like every river has alot of rainbow we should try to build the brown population. if anyone else has fished the jeff they prob would agree?

[YETI_MILK]

i have the same problem with catching rainbows out of the Jefferson river you catch 5 rainbows to one brown and you can only keep browns so when a rainbow swallows your hook and is diein you have to let it go when i could take it home and feed it to my kid. i dont agree with that i think it should be the other way around you should be able to keep a couple rainbows there are plenty of them in that river. seems like every river has alot of rainbow we should try to build the brown population. if anyone else has fished the jeff they prob would agree?

i think theys too many rainbow triouts in jefferson too they sghould stalk brown trout and more cutthroat to they a native species have aplace in the fishery to.