number of fish a person can take totally each year?

[lawnboy]

I’m sure that this has been brought up before. Should they have limits to the number of fish a person can take totally each year? Like in deer hunting a simple tag that you apply to each fish and you’re only aloud so many a season with a restriction to only (X) number a day.

This way I think people would be choosier as to what they take. Again like in deer hunting you can shoot a deer but most wait for the “right” one, and let a lot pass. Sure some would say that some people would never follow such a rule and that’s true just like in deer hunting but I feel that most would.

[ESOX]

Interesting concept,but it would be very hard to regulate. Besides, I think that most knowledgeable sportspeople are already aware of the consequences of being a fish hog. Those that don't care will never change.

[jpollman]

I agree 100% Esox !

[Spanky]

The enforcement department is short staffed enough. This would never be able to happen. Some things are best left to common sense.Please don't take it the wrong way.:)

[TONGA]

Not a bad idea,,but I will have to go with ESOX and Spanky,,it would be just to hard to pull off!

[lawnboy]

Just as an example a sheet that has say 50 small tags on it with your id number stamped on it. One would have to attach it like a deer license to each fish. After all you tags are gone one could buy another pack of fifty or twenty-five or end it for the season. It would even give the dnr a better idea of what is being taken in numbers.

[Spanky]

hehehe, if ya just hafta buy more tags, then it doesn't solve anything. The lack of walleyes isn't because of lack of money. It just means that the guys who have the most money can keep the most fish.

What are the charters sposed to do, have the clients bring their stamps along to fish, and if you only have stamps left for 3 fish, well too bad , you still pay full price and wait for the other customers on board to get their allowed fish.

last example: billy bob and gomer are out fishing for eyes and have been knockin em dead, they come in early, don't tag their fish, go on home, never get checked, never use any stamps. I already mentioned the enforcement shortage, How many times have you been checked by a CO this year. Out of 45+ trips for me, I have been checked less than 6 times.

[Icet]

Well intentioned but like Esox said who will enforce. The hogs will still break the law and will never quit. Always kind of felt quality rather than quantity. Putting fish back that are the breeders should be practiced but as long as we are caught up with "big" fish it will not improve. I often wonder when I see pails full of fish how many really make it to the dinner table. My worst experience to date (LSC) was a guy with about a 48" Musky at the dock asking if anybody wanted it. Why in the world kill someting that you have no intention of eating. :rolleyes:

[TONGA]

I have been checked 2 times in my whole life! so lets see thats 2 out of? well,um I could not even begin to think how many times I have been fishing!! I would not be shocked if it was well over 1,000 times!!!

[tubejig]

lawnboy, that is a tough question to answer. Maybe you should try that one over in the Cold Water Forum. What would you do with a king that was caught while fishing for Laketrout? We both know that it is going to die because most peole target Lakers in deep water near the bottom. Hard to let a fish go when its guts are coming out of its mouth. Put a net to a king and its generally going to die.

Just like ESOX said, It would be hard to pull off.

my .02 worth.

tubejig

[Mike Thomas]

Lawnboy: I think there is only one fish with a season limit in Michigan at the current time - lake sturgeon, just one per season. And in that case they have to be tagged, and you can only obtain one tag per year. As some others in this thread have already noted, this would be very difficult from an enforcement standpoint for most other species.

This issue touches on a common misconception among Michigan anglers. The common belief is that the daily bag limits are set at a level that would allow all anglers to keep their daily limit every time they go fishing without threatening the resource. This is completely wrong. Our current daily bag limits do little more than promote some equity in harvest among anglers (restricting the really good ones from taking a whole pile, while the not so good ones struggle to catch a couple). IF all anglers were successful enough to go out and catch the current daily limits of walleye, or pike, or perch, or bass, every time they went out, we'd find our fish populations decimated. Luckily, only a small percentage of the anglers regularly catch their limits of their target species. The result of this situation is that bag limits are the weakest tool available for regulating sport fish harvest. In order to restrict harvest very much, they have to be set very low. For example (and these are just numbers for the purpose of illustration), total walleye harvest on Lake St. Clair might be reduced by about 25% if the creel limit is reduced from 6 fish to 3 fish. The same reduction could be possible with an increase of minimum size limit from 13 inches to 15 inches and the bag limit left at 6 fish.

We have recently been reviewing options for reducing our walleye harvest on Lake Erie waters in order to comply with the quota allocation management system used for walleye management on Lake Erie. Some discussion on this topic is ongoing in another thread.

[tubejig]

As the old saying goes. 10 percent of the fisherman catch 90 percent of the fish.

[trout]

An infinite amount.
Some species have no limit therefore.................

[ZobZob]

The tagging theory would not work. I went about 20 years before I first got stopped by a CO to check for my license last winter. Believe it or not, it was on a lake where there was no one else. I didn't have any fish either...

I think the reduced harvest and 15" minimum would help though.

Zob