Fisherman keep tiger muskie out of season

[OnAFly]

Ignorance for the law is not an excuse to break it. Like said above, if you need food that bad you shouldn't be fishing.

I don't fish muskies, just looking around the threads at work, but this kind of stuff needs to stop. Our fisheries would be much better if people would practice a little self restraint in what they keep.

[AWH]

This isn't a case of someone not being able to keep the laws straight. Read the story. It was a case of someone knowingly keeping an illegal fish and not caring.

Aaron

[mainbutter]

Honestly, how many people out there fishing are really doing it because they "need" a meal? It costs more for the rods, bait, gas to the lake, etc then it does for food.

I'm not trying to start an argument here, since 99.99% of the time that is the case.

However it is definitely possible to fish and come out ahead on costs.

$30 rod and reel combo and four $3 lures gets me by for fishing most places. I've probably put 150-200lbs of wild alaskan salmon fillet in my parents' freezer over the past few years on not much more than that, maybe an extra 3-4 lures to replace a few lost lures to snags. Gas costs for the fishing certainly wasn't more than 2-3 each year when I visited. If you figure the cost at the grocery store is somewhere around $12-20 a pound, I'm way above cost. Heck I'm somewhere around breaking even if you wanted to count plane ticket costs to fly up there. I've heard that some of the European anglers fund their fishing trips to AK by selling meat they bring back home.

Of course we don't do it for cheap food, we do it for GOOD food. I'm just presenting one case in the US where fishing CAN be done for subsistence rather than sport. In addition, when you factor in time spent fishing compared to an hourly wage as well, this drives the cost of fishing up as well. No one is going to become rich from being a subsistence fisherman, but all I'm trying to get across is that it can be done to supplement your meals and done under the cost of equipment.

Also if you tell your wife that you're bringing home fish for dinner, I'd say that in some people's books, yeah there is adequate "need" to follow through on that promise or face repercussions

Plenty of people spend way more money on catching fish than they need to spend to be successful. However, that's just part of the sport, and having expensive equipment and fancy lures is sure fun.

None of this excuses poaching. Sorry for going a little off topic.

Thanks for reporting the poachers.

[OIF_Veteran_21B]

Is there anything you can do other than put it back in the water with a muskie, during closed season, when it's hooked bad and is bleeding bad before you even realize what it is and get a chance to cut the line?

[PierBridge]

I think I heard that when the DNR confiscate a deer fish or any other game they give to a shelter or mission.

Or veterans homes for most edible fish.

The waste is the guy who poached the fish and not on the DNR's part no matter what they end up doing with it.

[50inchpig]

not really, circle of life, it won't go to total waste. we put back a dead 45" last summer because it was late at night and too fat to cut up and frankly, the thought of eating it disgusted me.

don't cut the line though - not a good release method

[PierBridge]

We knew when they closed Muskie during winter fishing recently that there were going to be a lot of anglers getting poped "popped or caught"

[bobbymalone]

methinks if you catch a fish out of season, you should at least land it and unhook it rather than just cut line....

if it's hooked bad, cut the line and back down the hole.

if it's bleeding bad, back down the hole.

if it's dead, back down the hole.

i think that is the only legal way to deal with it. it sucks for the honest guy that would eat/mount a dead/dying fish that was accidentally caught out of season, but it makes for an easy excuse for somebody with an illegal fish laying on the ice.

"I'm sorry officer, I couldn't get it to swim back down the hole"

[OIF_Veteran_21B]

Yeah I figured that was the correct protocol for the situation. I had a couple of them become casualties of war in the last year. One was bleeding when got up the hole, let go, but I'm sure with the blood loss she was a goner. Another one, had bitten off the line. Was walleye fishing with a large chubby darter, and a couple days later, my buddy dropped a camera down the hole and the muskie was laying dead on the bottom with the darter sticking in it's gills. If I had been thinking on the one got in the hole, would have gotten her measurements and done a replica.