What does "I caught my limit" mean?

[gophish]

i had this conversation with a fellow guide when i was working in ely this summer. we were talking how it seems when people come "up north", the rate their trip as to how they did fishing a the only way to justify the money they spend is whether or not they "catch their limit" sadlly enough this means that they pretty much keep anything and have few standards towards what they keep. figure the only way to get your money's worth out of a fish is to eat it. It killed me this summer taking these people out and having to fillet a cigar for them cus they wouldnt let me throw it back, since they dish out the money in the end, i felt compelled to oblige. I think with LOTW, people think that since they can catch 50 walleye in a day anyhow, what does it matter if they eight or a multiple of eight, there are plenty more anyhow.

just think how sweat that place could be with one year of ethical keeping.

as far as taking people seriously as to how good the fishing was, FMers are about theonly people whos reports i take stock in. I Love You Guys!

sincerely,

gophish

please dont take that seriously.

[zpinca]

In regard to the giving fish away, any fish that you catch and keep are "in your possession". Its kind of vague in the regulations (Minnesota's) where it says, "fish are in an angler's possession whether on hand, in cold storage, in transport, or elsewhere". It doesn't say anything about giving fish away, but that's where "elsewhere" comes into play. If you give a limit of walleyes to someone, they must A) have a license and not be in possession of any other walleyes or B)have your license information with the fish until the fish are consumed. If you have a limit of walleyes and give a limit to someone that doesn't fish and therefore does not have a license; you would be in excess of your possession limit and thus breaking the law. You would also run into a problem of being over your possession limit if you had any fish at home for instance and then gave a limit to someone else even if they do have a license and they have no fish in their possession. You would be over your possession during the transportation to the person. I am not an expert on this topic, but this is very similar to being in possession of wild game and giving it to someone; thus I am fairly certain that it applies the same to the fish possession law.

[Predator]

Glad someone brought this up, because I have been wondering about something and havent looked it up yet. Say there are about 7-8 guys that are going out fishing out of three trucks/shacks. All limits are observed and we possess no fish over any limit. However, some of the guys are lazy and/or dont like to clean fish. These same guys also reside on the opposite side of town as the others. In the interest of saving driving time, the fish are transported together in the back of one truck to the home where the cleaning is going to take place before later being redistributed amongst the group. I am assuming that, if stopped, the guys transporting the fish could be ticketed for too many. My question, then, is there a way to do this legally? I know when hunting, I can transport deer for another licensed hunter if I have the tranportation tag on the animal. Anyone know if there is a way to do something similar with fish? Or are you taking your chances anytime you have more than (one person) is legal to have no matter your intententions?

[zpinca]

I would suspect you're SOL unless the game warden that stopped you believed you and was being compassionate. I would just make the "lazy/don't want to clean people" come with for the comraderie if nothing else. its a good chance to have a cold one or two and talk about how much fun you had.

[dsludge]

I think the regs specify that everyone's limits can be in the same place as long as they can be identified and seperated. The fishing license numbers and (names?) of each fisherman should be at the ready. I believe Mn regs also require fishing license numbers to be written on stored fish limits. It would be a good idea to keep fishing license copies of everyone in a fishing party when transporting more than your own limit.

dsludge

[Predator]

So, hypothetically, if a friend and I have a bucket with 15 walleyes in it in our truck, but also have a copy of our other two friends' licenses in hand, we might be ok? That seems like a good idea. Although, I can see how someone could exploit that pretty easily, too. Wonder how the CO would react. I guess it may depend the officer and whether he believes us or not. Something to think about I guess.