New Bait bucket and boat sticker laws to take effect (AIS)

[LMITOUT]

Quote:

Another provision requires the state's 800,000 boaters to place a free invasive species decal on their boats. The stickers will remind boaters to comply with the laws, including draining all water and removing vegetation or invasive species from boats and trailers.

Failure to comply will be a petty misdemeanor, though the law doesn't call for penalties until 2014.

Papers! Show me your papers!

[reinhard1]

dont have my "free" sticker yet. guess i'll have to remind myself at the boat landing. do they have "free instructions" on how to properly remove the plug and exchange the water in the minnow bucket? good luck.

[Mcfin]

I was checked today by CO in Chisago County. She said that both minnows and leeches have to be drained and transferred to water from home or bait shop in your vehicle. Right now, water from bait shops are ok but they are looking into baitshop water in the future. I have well water so I can keep a 5 gallon bucket with ice and air pump. For people with city water, bring your bucket and fill it from the bait store at least for now.

[reinhard1]

when i get done fishing saturday i will drain everything pull the plug and put all left over minnows in a plastic bag and dig a hole in my garden and dump them in there. this whole thing is nuts, and now they are going to check the water in the bait shops possibly? good luck.

[TravP]

I was checked today by CO in Chisago County. She said that both minnows and leeches have to be drained and transferred to water from home or bait shop in your vehicle. Right now, water from bait shops are ok but they are looking into baitshop water in the future. I have well water so I can keep a 5 gallon bucket with ice and air pump. For people with city water, bring your bucket and fill it from the bait store at least for now.

Leeches? Even if they didn't go in the lake? I was told by a CO at the Malmo landing on Mille Lacs as long as the bait stays in a cooler or never goes in the lake, I don't neeed to do anything. They better get this straight or their going to have alot of people fighting it.

[hamms-scooter]

Went to go fish monday made it to the landing and realized i forgot to grab my vex ... well I had already in stalled my plug and took off back strap. I put the strap back on and ran home about a mile and got the flasher. When i got back to the landing I was flowed in by co. He said he could issue a ticket for having the plug in and I said I always yank it out and didn't have it in the water yet...He gave a writen warning so he had record of talking to me which i asked what i should do with it? he said didn't matter,I said I was going to just frame it and put it on the wall then he said the fridge would be good enough . Nice guy and just doing his job. Just pull your plugs if boat is trailered!!!

[ozzie]

TravP-

How would they know that they hadn't been in the lake? That is also the question I have when I change my bait water and then start to go home how am I suppose to prove it is water from home rather than lake water? I am sure sometimes clarity is an obvious tell but not always

[reinhard1]

this is why this law wether it is with good intentions or some pipe dream of a stuffed shirt in the leglislature is one of the worst i have seen. will they do a chemical analysis of the water? if it's a stained lake the difference is noticable but not in a clear lake. the CO's have to do their job and i cant blame them one bit. this is just more "feel good" leglislation. we already have notices at public landings regarding to invasive species and have had "free" stickers in the past regarding the inspection of weeds ect. good luck.

[TravP]

TravP-

How would they know that they hadn't been in the lake? That is also the question I have when I change my bait water and then start to go home how am I suppose to prove it is water from home rather than lake water? I am sure sometimes clarity is an obvious tell but not always

Oops guess I posted the samew thing twice . They wouldn't know, but I have the integrity to change my water, or dump my bait if it had been in the lake. Until the regs are CLEARLY stated, and all C.O.'s are on the same page, I won't be dumping anything, because it's always in the cooler. As I was told I am 100% legal doing it this way.

[bobbymalone]

Papers! Show me your papers!

Really? A free sticker you have to put on is part of the police state?

Back home in MO we have to put a yellow dot on our shotguns right below the sight plane that says "Be Safe" and we could still exercise any number of our rights, except the one to have our shotguns free of yellow stickers. I think we will probably be able to live through it, just as we did back home.

Man, I wish I had so little to worry about that free stickers and bait buckets were great big freakin' deals.

[Nate McVey]

Quote:

Man, I wish I had so little to worry about that free stickers and bait buckets were great big freakin' deals.

+1

[Tator2k]

I got ignored while waiting in line to recover my boat on Monday. CO saw my free sticker and proceeded to stop and question the guy in front of me for 10 min.....great. Can you do it after they get off the launch?

[reinhard1]

the CO's are doing their jobs, but i wish with the few we have they would concentrate on game and fish violations and leave the checking to part time summer help like they used to have. they should only be called if someone refuses to comply with the regulations. good luck.

[SkitterPopper]

Some people seem to believe that this law was written to stop exotic species. We will never stop what is already here. This is to SLOW the exotics from moving lake to lake.

Also, can someone answer one question for me? If the duck, geese, loons, ect... are spreading these exotics then why are there not more than a handful of lakes out of 10,000 that are affected. I know every lake I have been to has ducks or geese on them all year. It is also kind of ironic that most of the lakes that are infested are near major population centers or very popular lakes for boaters (humans).

You can see in several threads there are a few guys that say they will not obey the law and not pull there plug or dump their bait. This my friends is what got us to this point. There are some people that were just to lazy or did not care that led us to the laws that were enacted.

[TruthWalleyes]

15 page PDF file of infested lakes is not a handful.

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/eco/invasives/infested_waters.pdf

[bobbymalone]

the metro area must have the best waterfowling hunting in the state since ducks and geese have contaminated so many lakes in that area.

[SkitterPopper]

Quote:

15 page PDF file of infested lakes is not a handful.

Yep, I would consider that list short when looking at 15,000 lakes in the state. I know I originally said 10,000 but I believe the correct number is closer to 15,000. So yes, I would consider that a handful.

Quote:

the metro area must have the best waterfowling hunting in the state since ducks and geese have contaminated so many lakes in that area.

You are correct Bobby, the numbers don't lie. I think HUMANS have had more to do with this problem than most would like to admit.

[SalmonSlayer]

You can see in several threads there are a few guys that say they will not obey the law and not pull their plug or dump their bait. This, my friends is what got us to this point. There are some people that were just too lazy or did not care that led us to the laws that were enacted.

I agree with what I believe the intent of your post to be, that people not doing what they should contributed to the problem, but these people only transferred what was already HERE. What got us to this point was pathetically weak to non-existent restrictions/laws on ballast water transfers.

And I'd have to say that waterfowl hunting would be fantastic in the metro. They're everywhere you look.

[Jackpine Rob]

[back home in MO we have to put a yellow dot on our shotguns right below the sight plane ...

Seriously??? Holy carp! The nanny state is reaching all-new levels. Next thing you know they will be mandating helmets so no one is injured by falling birds....

Is the sticker really mandatory?

[SkitterPopper]

Quote:

but these people only transferred what was already HERE

It is here in a select few lakes. The new laws were created to help control the spread of these exotics to new lakes that do not have them.

Quote:

What got us to this point was pathetically weak to non-existent restrictions/laws on ballast water transfers.

I am pretty sure that ballast water transfers had nothing to do with most of the exotics in Minnesota waters.

We can't get hung up on the past. It's the future that we are concerned with, thus the new laws.

[SalmonSlayer]

I am pretty sure that ballast water transfers had nothing to do with most of the exotics in Minnesota waters.

It's pretty well documented that Eurasian milfoil and zebra mussels were brought here through the great lakes via ballast/bilge water from commercial shipping.

[Getanet]

Seriously??? Holy carp! The nanny state is reaching all-new levels. Next thing you know they will be mandating helmets so no one is injured by falling birds....

Is the sticker really mandatory?

Wait, are we living in a nanny state or a police state? Is the nanny married to the policeman? I'm so confused

The sticker on the boat is dumb, but whatever. The water transfer is what seems the most ridiculous. As some have pointed out, it doesn't sound like the CO's have been told the same info and are on the same page. Worse yet, if you get pulled over there really isn't a way to prove or disprove that you added fresh water to your minnows or leeches when you left the lake. It really seems to be a he-said/she-said kind of deal, which means your chances of getting a citation are probably based more on circumstances (were you a jerk; was the CO having a bad day, etc) than whether or not you actually complied with the law.

I'm all for slowing the spread of invasives, but this particular regulation seems like a silly way of doing it. While normally I don't think stiffer penalties always lead to the desired behavior, I would think increasing the fines for those not complying with the regs for trailer their boat would do much more good.

[SkitterPopper]

Quote:

What got us to this point was pathetically weak to non-existent restrictions/laws on ballast water transfers.

I did not look it up and I guess I put my foot in my mouth.

At any rate shouldn't we make tougher laws now knowing our mistakes made in the past? You are correct, it is here and here to stay. We can all do our part to keep it from spreading to more lakes. It sure makes things harder for some fishermen but it is for the good of all the lakes in Minnesota.

[bobbymalone]

Is the sticker really mandatory?

Yep and it has been since the late 80s and it's only for turkey hunting (i believe). The sticker itself is round and about the diameter of a pencil eraser.

The idea is that it encourages hunters, on a conscious and unconscious level, to give one last thought that it's actually a turkey before pulling the trigger.

It came about after a particularly grisly turkey season as far as accidents go. The conservation agents that ran the hunter's ed course I took around that time, really hit hard about turkey hunting safety. Accidents have since decreased, but whether any of that's directly a result of the sticker can't be determined.

I'm sure people raised a huge biotch about it when it came about, but nobody is concerned about it anymore. Two stickers come as a package deal with your license.

[PierBridge]

yougottabkiddingme...