The verdict is in: Guilty...sort of...

[Mook!]

Showboat posed a good question in one of my recent fishing reports:

I put a 24 in the box. 10-15 minutes later I put a 25 in the box. 10 minutes after that, Mojo broke off on a monster. 10 minutes after that, he lost another one. 10-15 minutes after that, I landed an over-slot, and so on, you get the idea.

Would putting both in fish in the box for a two man team also be cheating? Just asking? Are these tournaments really 1 fish/person/day...no culling?

I said I would ask and I finally got some answers yesterday. I got busy at work at the end of the week and didn't get time to get in touch with division of marine fisheries, but I asked a few FWC officers yesterday when I was out fishing. I explained that I had given someone a hard time about culling and that someone had posed the question above. All gave variations of the same answer.

Technically, it is not legal if I catch two fish, net them, put them in the box etc. All said that it would never be enforced if there are two licensed fishermen and no more than 2 fish (and one of them said 'and if there isn't any cullling going on') because there are so many loopholes. One was that none of them could tell me a clear-cut definition of the exact action that constitutes harvesting to posession. I asked questions like "What if I hook a fish but my partner nets it and throws it in the box" and "What if I hook it up but then hand the pole to my partner and he brings it in" and was told things like "Well then it's a grey area as to who harvested it."

They also all told me that the enforcement and purpose of the actual personal harvest number laws as opposed to boat and bag limit is not really for that purpose, but more to prevent people from loading boats with children, veterans, elderly etc who are not required a license (or people who have a license but aren't fishing), and then using their presence as an excuse to double and triple your own take-home amounts. One of them told me they will enforce this limit only in situations like 'one of these guys I stopped recently telling me his 4 year old daughter caught these 3 giant grouper.'

They discussed a lot of other loopholes with me, the most interesting of which is that it is legal to harvest red drum by net (oh but not just any net, there are regs on that too). So even if I caught a fish, dehooked it, and told showboat 'stand right there with the net touching the water' and dropped it right in front of his net (as long as I don't drop it IN the net), then I have released the fish free and unharmed and it is perfectly legal for him to scoop it up and harvest. I always thought that was illegal, but I just read in the latest Fishing Lines where it even specifically lists red drum in the list of species legal to catch by cast netting.

There were some other more complicated but equally silly loopholes they threw out there that I could legally catch a fish and definitely not have been considered the harvester. I would think, if you went the net route to follow the technicality of the law, that it would be cheating in any tournament that specifies you have to catch by hook and line, but there are other ways to do it legally with hook and line. As such, I don't think it gives you an unfair advantage over other teams, and I wouldn't personally consider it cheating. What do you folks think?

The last Officer I spoke to yesterday said "Well now you're just knit-picking and getting down to the nitty-gritty of technicality with the who caught the fish question, but I guess that's what you get for giving someone a hard time"

[jsuber]

I remember watching one of the Oberta Redfsih Tours and one of the guys caught a Big Red, then hooked another and gave the rod to his partner to bring in. Maybe it was because of the camera on board, or maybe they are like golfers enforcing upon themselves the right rules, after all they will tested by a lie detector in the event they win.

[Jumptrout51]

I know someone who caught and live-welled his fish. At the end of the day he released them. Is that catch and release or culling?
P.S. He decided he just did not want to clean them.

[Double Naught]

Mook!

If you ever need a straight forward interpretation, try;
http://askit.myfwc.com/cgi-bin/myfwc.cf ... td_alp.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Create an account (free) and pose your question. It may take a week to get your response, but it will be in writing. You could print it and carry it with you if need be.

Interpretive differences seem to pop up on certain FWC boats. Something in writing may settle it before it turns into

[Mook!]

Suber I'm pretty sure the redfish tour has permits, and the permit specifies that perosnal limits are waived but you can only posess two per team and can't throw back a dead one, and what makes culling illegal is going over limit. In an elite level like that though, there might be a tournament rule of one per team member for weigh-in. I'm too lazy to check. I think though, in the interest of being safe-not-sorry I would prolly do the same in any future tournament without a permit. I'll bet that Paul Chavis feller could enlighten us on that one off the top of his head.

Jumptrout I wouldn't think that would be considered culling because the person you know isn't replacing fish or exceeding limits. I think your example is just bad for the fish, but then again the survival chance is greater than if he/she decided to clean them...

...and thanks Double Naught. I knew about that but just didn't get around to it this week. You're definitely right about interpretive differences. I've even experienced them on the same FWC boat - one Officer writing us a ticket for not having a throw ring on a J16 was interrupted by his partner with a dade book pointing out that they are only required on boats of 16' or greater length (at least at the time a few years ago), and the J16 is not actually quite 16' - they actually argued about it for a few minutes before the ticket-writing Officer decided it was 'our lucky day' and that he was 'letting us off' with a stern talking-to.

[Jumptrout51]

BTW what good is a throw ring if you are the only person on the boat?

[cmccord]

You have to have the throw ring, even when by yourself, just in case you fall in. Perhaps a mermaid would come by to get it and throw it to you. But, then again, why would you want a throw ring if you had a mermaid?

[CROCKER]

CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG, BUT A THROW CUSHION IS ALL I WAS TOLD THAT WAS REQUIRED???

[Reel Cowboy]

CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG, BUT A THROW CUSHION IS ALL I WAS TOLD THAT WAS REQUIRED???

Throw ring & cushion, 6 of 1 and half dozen of the other.

[bman]

This reminds me of a Freshwater Trout fishing trip about 6 years ago. I took a guy who just could not catch a fish. I caught my 8 fish limit and he had 0 in the box so I started keeping fish. He had 1 and I had 15 in the box and we were running in.
The MAN stopped us and checked the boat, licenses, safety equipment and we were all legal.
Then he asked my buddy- "What did you catch them on?"
My "Buddy" says- "I couldn't buy a fish today, Barry caught almost all of them!"
The officer smiles and says Wrong answer.

He was nice and let me off with a warning, but, told me I couldn't do that again.
That was my last fishing trip with my "buddy"

[cmccord]

Great Buddy. Makes you think more carefully about who you take fishing with you.

[whitebc]

You have to have the throw ring, even when by yourself, just in case you fall in. Perhaps a mermaid would come by to get it and throw it to you. But, then again, why would you want a throw ring if you had a mermaid?