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| Here is the scenario,I am fishing my home water,the mighty Eau Claire River.I see a couple fishing from one of my favorite spots and I think nothing of it.I am up river from them,working a small hole,2 other fishermen come down,pass this couple and it looked like they were looking at a fish on a stringer.I make my way to this couple and the guy asks me if I know the differance between a musky and a northern,I say a yes I do and proceed to look at the fish on the stringer.It was a beutifully marked musky,not a tiger but had some real cool markings which is unusual for the river.I measure the musky,33 1/2" ( they did not have a tape measure),and tell him to let him go.He tries to revive the fish,about a minute and the fish moves about 3 feet and kind of burries its nose in the sand.I wonder back to them,about 2 minutes since he released it.I see the tail of the musky and I instantly jumped in the river,grab the tail of it and bring it closer to shore.The fish did not struggle when I grabed it.I then proceeded to properly revive the musky,facing it upstream to get some water through its gills and gently moving form side to side.After around 5 minutes the fish is holding it self upright and showing signs of life.A few minutes later the musky swims out of my hand and slowly disappears!I am happy to have saved this musky!!!My question to you,the serious musky anglers is,Would you have done the same thing on a small musky even though you did not catch it?I told them about a few good online musky sites and spent a few minutes talking about releasing and not keeping a musky,not preaching,just friendly advice.Did I do the right thing?Sorry for a long story,I had to tell someone!Good Luck,Paul | |
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| Sounds like a happy ending. You did the right thing. If the couple bankfishing learned from their mistake all the better. I could not say that my confronting them would have been very pleasant. Either way authorities would have been called. Good luck.[:)] | |
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| Well, some people wil keep anything. Seems like a lot of locals here keep anything, doesn't matter. Then you hear them complain that the smallies legal and over are harder to find!!!!!!
I think with the availibility of modern refrigeration and the help that you can get if you're hungry, people don't need to fill stringers. With more and more people fishing, it's going to get more expensive to maintain the fisheries, especially if everyone keeps them.
Yes, I would have done the same thing. Generally, I find people that don't know pretty understanding when you teach them something new.
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| Sounds like you did great Paul. I run into this problem frequently in Montana with trout. On the Missouri where I fish most the time, you can only keep 1 brown trout over 22", which is a big fish. Many times I have found fisherman packing around sublegal browns or more than one. Usually my tact is to talk to them casually to get a feel if they understand the regs. If it is clear they do not I try to give them some friendly education...unfortunately trout can rarely be revived unless you are there when they are caught. BUT if they obviously know what they are doing I just leave, pull out my cell phone and call the local warden. He has given me his personal cell phone number and makes a big effort to get out quick and give the intentionally ignorant an expensive education in the regs. It really gripes me when people who know what they are doing break the law in keeping fish.
But if they are fishing they really ought to know the regs before they go and be able to positively identify what they have caught or certainly not keep it.
BrianW[:(] | |
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| If I had longer arms I`d pat you on the back. Not only did you do a good deed, you set a great example. You can bet that they`ll tell their friends about what you did. Way to go man. I`m proud of you. Beav[:praise:] | |
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| PAul,
Congrats on your good deed. It doesn't what size the fish was. It is there responsibility to check the regulations and know the difference between a pike and a musky. The other day I went down to the river to throw around a few spinnerbaits until dark when I noticed two guys making alot of noise. I moved down the shore to find a guy hooking a smallmouth bass in the tail and casting it out. I asked him what he was fishing for and he said musky. Told me his buddy caught a nice 6 pounder last week.[:(] I told them that 1. you cannot keep a musky in the river until it is 44 inches also that they take a long time to achieve that size and should be released. 2. told him that game fish regardless of thier size cannot be used as bait. He told me he caught it with a worm and thought you were aloud to use ""minnows"" . I made him take the smallmouth off the hook and let it go. I was so mad I had to leave. I prgrammed the MNR's poaching hotline in my cell phone in case i run into this again. Makes you wonder what we don't see and why it takes so long to catch trophy fish.
People like this should be fined and not aloud to fish
----JAmie | |
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| Kudos to you! Great Job. Yes I would have done the same thing, and I would have given them a bit of an education on how to identify fish species. Sometimes people are ignorant and need to know. I know that seems strange to people like us who fish every chance we get, but there are some out there that educate us, as in yep, there some ignorant people out there. | |
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What Would You Have Done???