This last Tuesday was as perfect a March day as could be expected in southern West Virginia, so I decided to go to the local pond and practice my casting. To my joy, the state had decided to stock the pond with trout that day too! When I got there, I noticed a few of the fellows sitting on the grass with dejected looks and no fishing equiptment while their buddies were catching their limits. Later on in the day, I heard the ‘rest of the story’. It seems our bench warmers had tryed to get a jump on everyone else, so after the stocking truck had left, they waded out in the lake and kicked a few of the bigger ones out onto dry land before the fish started moving out into open waters. Luckily our local ‘man in green’ knew about the stocking and was sitting up on the hill in the bushes watching the whole thing.
Gas to come to the lake: $5
Cost of fine: $200+ each
Look on their faces: PRICELESS
Thanks to all of you that patrol our waterways and forests; for you enforce the laws that make our sports a pleasure.
I have a next door neighbor who would have been right there with them. When he ran the local butcher shop, every Friday during Lent they would have a fish fry. Local farmers and card players would stand in line for the fish, all cooked by his wonderful wife. It was all you could eat. Bluegill. Crappie. Walleye and Northern. So, one might ask, where did all these fish come from? Spearing, every day after he could get on the ice. And fishing. Among his friends were two or three others with boats, and when they heard of a lake being hot for bluegill from an overzealous blabberer, and the network was a good one, their flotilla would arrive, three anglers to a boat, and start working the beds. 90 fish per boat, day in, day out, until they caught no more. Then they’d hole up until the next report came in. Off again they’d go. I was surprised when we moved here 12 years ago and found that in comparison to other parts of MN that the bluegill results were so small. Someone told me, “You’ll discover the reason why.” To this day he has not been caught. Limits? Sure, he was under . . . for the day. But in his freezer he was well beyond. One day I wrote a column about “harvesters” and there was a mad scramble as his card friends and farmers suddenly showed up at the butcher shop to take frozen blocks of fish home to their home freezers so my neighbor wouldn’t be caught. Funny though, since my column the Lent Fries no longer exist. There hasn’t been one all spring. We have a few “blabbers” around who can’t wait to spread it around when a lake gets hot, but most are learning. In this part of MN there just isn’t that much pressure on the lakes, not like Up North and Way Up North – as it is said around here. And, my neighbor and his buddies weren’t the only ones guilty of overharvesting. All these folks are about the same age, and several of the group has died over the past couple of years. Also, the MN DNR changed the limit from 30 to 15 per day, which is still well beyond a reasonable harvest. Maybe there is hope for our bluegill fisheries in the future. JGW
We watched a couple of flyfishers boat and keep about 25 trout one day last fall limit is 6 . The only good thing is the fisheries guy watched them also. He met them at their truck and confiscated the catch , the boat and the gear . They got to ride home in their truck , which is lucky because by law he could have seized it also . We thanked the officer , he laughed and said , “Well I hate poachers and This is my Idea of catch and release” . lol
I’ll pass this story along since it’s so relavent to the thread. A year or two ago I read a story in the local newspaper about the two rookie DNT fellas who’s first assignment was to go fishing, undercover, at the #1 ( and nearly only) trout stream in Northern Indiana on opening day. They watched happily for a couple of hours as three “gentlemen” and their children, fished quite sucessfully for the stocker Rainbows that had been released earlier that day. Seems after each one of them would catch a fish or two they’d make a trip back up the bank to the camper with the fish in hand. They would spend several minutes inside the camper and emerge a bit more wobbly than they went in. After doing some rough calculations and figuring out they’d let it go on long enough, our rookie deaners ambled on over and introduced themselves. The list of offenses for which these three goofballs were charged included: possession of marijuana, exceeding both catch and possession limits, not having a fishing license or trout stamp, public intoxication, and the list goes on. They lost their fishing equipment, camper, truck, and lifetime fishing rights in addition to the jail time and fines. I thought these two rookie DNR fellas should have been given an instant promotion. I hope to run into them on the stream some day so I can shake their hands and thank them.
These are the idle thoughts that posses a man’s mind when he’s not able to fish.