possesion limit question

[say_der]

My wife got a fishing license for the first time in almost 10 years. If I have a limit of fish in my freezer that I personally caught one day, can I go out and fish again the next day and keep more fish because those can be considered her legal limit when in my freezer?

I rarely keep many if any fish anyway, in a way it's more of an ethical question for me. I'm not sure I'd feel right doing it even if it is legal.

[Aquaman01]

Good question, and I bet it comes to folks minds more than you might think.

The limit is per licensed angler.

If you have a native aquarium in your home with legally aquired gamefish in it, they also count towards someone's possession limit.

Rob

[Crappie Killer]

Do kids under 16 count?

[pikemania]

It is technically legal but morally wrong. My feeling is if you have the license you need to go and work for the fish if you want to keep them. You can have one limit of fish per licensed angler so if you have two licensed anglers you can have two limits of fish in possesion. Under 16 do not require a license and they can have a limit of fish in there posession also. Again the question that has been brought up time and time again is why do you need to keep that much fish anyway. I like to eat fish and my wife and I went out this summer and kept one legal limit of walleyes even though we were allowed two. We are still have walleye in the freezer and have ate about a meal per month. My point is one legal limit is a lot of fish. I know people like to eat fish that is fine but use commone sense if the fish you keep are just going to sit in the freezer and collect freezer burn let them go and just keep what you can eat. It is not a contest to see who has more fish in there freezer. Okay I am getting off my soapbox now and just say yes it is legal but use common sense.

[say_der]

OK - here's another related question. Say I catch my limit one day and my wife does too (yeah right). All fish are in my freezer. Can I go out and fish C&R the next day? That doesn't seem right to me either considering that if I catch my limit one day I can't practice C&R from that point on.

[basguy31]

It is perfectly fine to go out the next day and practice catch and release.

[tightlines]

It was explained to me that if you have a limit of eyes for example in your possession,boat, freezer etc, and you are fishing C&R, the first eye you catch you are now over the limit, regardless if your intention is to release it. You should stay one short of a limit if you want to continue fishing C&R.

[pikemania]

Tightlines you are correct. It is hard to enforce though. If somebody is out on the lake practicing C&R the DNR can not really know how much they have in the freezer back at home. Another one of those morale questions. Technically you are breaking the law but is it going to be enforced probably not.