# Is this illegal?



## Flyfish4thrills (Jan 2, 2008)

I was ice fishing this Saturday when a young couple, their 4 - 6 yr old child and the grandfather walked up to our ice fishing group and starting asking questions. It was strange but nice. They wanted to know more about ice fishing (they were driving by and decided to stop). The little girl was extremely interested and we let her pick up our poles and hold the line. Well, on one of our rods we hooked up with a bow, and we offered for her to reel it in. She did to the best of a 5 year old's-no fishing experience ability, and we lifted it out of the hole. If was great to see the expression on her face and that of her family as she looked at the fish. She even held it for a picture for her mother. It was really cool. Well, we then offered for her to take it home with her. A gentlemen fishing about 20 yards away (close enough to watch what was going on and close enough to ask how we were catching our fish...as we kindly obliged a few minutes earlier)...objected to her taking the fish. He said it was illegal as we were donating wildlife on the lake. We disagreed with him as we felt that she had caught the fish, but we didn't want to cause any scene on the lake, and so we said "sorry" and released it down the hole. I believe this man to be incorrect. To premise this, we were never near our limit (we weren't trying to reduce our possesion), we never keep our limit (besides a few fish to fry at home), and it would have been foolish, as we caught and released over 45 fish that day (slow day, really). According to the law, the little girl didn't need a license, nor does she need to use her parent's license (who incidentally had one). To the best of her ability she reeled it in. The guy said that she needed to have her own pole. I could not find that in the rule book. Can't she borrow a pole? Does the child have to be fishing completely unaided, hooking, reeling, and landing for it to be theirs? Does she have to walk off the lake with a pole? For those of you with children or that fished as children, did you not help or receive help when you were that age, but still counted the fish as the child's? I may be wrong. This was a strange and rare situation. I feel bad that instead of leaving the girl and parents with a good memory and possibly getting them more involved with fishing, the opposite occurred. Yes, the law should be followed, but would the law have been broken in this case? As a side note, the gentleman came over later and apologized for being possibly overbearing. He seems like a nice guy, so I'm not trying to lambaste him. The situation really bothered me, and so I would like to know: Would that have been illegal?


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## Nibble Nuts (Sep 12, 2007)

You should have whipped his *** and told him to **** off. 8)


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

W/o doing a full review of the regs, I believe that you are correct per the letter of the law especially when the one adult had a license. For the letter of the law; IMHO you are also legit assuming that everything you state is accurate particularly that you were all below limits and she indeed reeled it in. I think you are OK. 

As for your legal assistant on the lake; you have to appeciate that he was only trying to keep you from getting in trouble; with your best interests in mind; I do think he was wrong, but I think his intentions were good, for what it is worth. I had a similar experience on the Green when my wife caught a fishing line caught in moss and at the end was a bow in the slot-99% dead mind you, as he had broken the line and been dragging around all this moss for who knows how long when a guy from shore yells "looks like that isn't a keeper buddy," my immediate response was kiss my @$$ and watch your own line first of all and secondly I am simply untangling the line that was wrapped around him 10+ times to give him chance of life; I do not ever keep a fish unless it has a very poor chance of living after release, in this case had to be released by law even though it had 0 chance of living. Anyways; maybe it was the same guy, a little intrusive, but really just trying to help keep us out of trouble. The other kind of person tries to get you busted when there was no wrong doing... Just try and see his good intentions, I'm sure the 5-year old still had a positive experience...

The other kind of guy; a minor hijack, is much worse, let me tell you. My brother as a teenager had a buddy hunting with him; his buddy shot at a group of deer of 2 does and one buck, well I'm sure you can guess what he ended up shooting just by the probability. The doe drops and they go to check it out when another hunter who had seen it all approaches them and tells them to just get the he!! out of there before they get busted. The friend was the son of a trooper, so they together decided that they should just turn themselves in, which they did. A CO gets there and eventually figures out that the accidental shooting and poaching case are one in the same incident. This [email protected]$$ who told them to leave before they got busted had turned them in. So, they gave the reporting hunter a very hard time for having consulted them to break the law, they were about to charge him for a crime and my brother's friend simply had a fine and lost his tag for two years, I believe. I would rather have the guy being intrusive than the one telling me to break the law and then turn me in for an accident (yes, a very avoidable and stupid accident).


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## martymcfly73 (Sep 17, 2007)

You are right it is perfectly legal. The fish would have gone against your limit, and she could have fished on your license. As far as donating the fish it shouldnt be a problem as it went against your limit. 

You should have told that guy to mind his own dawm business!! :evil: It doesnt sound like he was worried you would get in trouble. Sounds like he was a jerk and he was jealous. What a butt crack!


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## americanforkdude (Sep 13, 2007)

Nibble Nuts said:


> You should have whipped his *** and told him to **** off. 8)


+1, nothing like a good fight on the hardwater! Ice fishing is freakin awesome but that site would take the cake!


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

americanforkdude said:


> Nibble Nuts said:
> 
> 
> > You should have whipped his *** and told him to **** off. 8)
> ...


Especially if one of you has a power auger; that could be a mean fighting machine j/k.


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## Fishrmn (Sep 14, 2007)

martymcfly73 said:


> The fish would have gone against your limit, and she could have fished on your license. As far as donating the fish it shouldnt be a problem as it went against your limit.


Nope. The fish was hers. It does *NOT* count as part of your limit. She can fish regardless of whether she or any of her relatives have a license or not. You aren't donating it to her, she caught it, and it is hers. It would have been illegal for you to keep it, because she would have had to donate it to you, which is illegal on the water.

Under 12 years of age
Utah Code § 23-19-21 and Utah Admin. Code R657-13-3
If you're under 12 years of age, you do not need a fishing license to fish in Utah. You can fish without a license and take a full bag and possession
limit.

Disposal of aquatic wildlife
Utah Code § 23-20-9
Donating
The following are the only places where you may donate or give protected aquatic wildlife or
their parts to another person:
The residence of the donor•
The residence of the person receiving • protected aquatic wildlife or their parts
A meat locker•
A storage plant•
A meat processing facility•
A written statement of donation must be kept with the protected aquatic wildlife or parts showing:
the number and species of protected aquatic • wildlife or parts donated;
the date of donation;•
the license or permit number of the donor; • and
the signature of the donor.

You can't donate fish to anyone else at a fishin' hole.

Fishrmn


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## Grandpa D (Sep 7, 2007)

Because it was your rod and you hooked the fish and then let her reel it up, I don't know who would be the person credited with the catch.
It would be the call of a DWR Officer.
The CO would hear how things transpired and then decide who caught the fish.
I would be very surprised if a citation was given in this situation.
The CO would probably inform everyone of the law and let it go.

Here is another situation that I witnessed.
At a Community pond, there were 2 anglers that traded fish with each other.
One had a catfish that he didn't want and the other had a trout that he traded for the catfish.
Were both anglers guilty of donating fish at the pond?


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## BrookTroutKid (Oct 10, 2007)

In that case Grandpa D I don't think it would really matter because they were not trading like three for 1 so I don't really know.


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## rockymtn_views (Oct 5, 2007)

These type of things always get me confused, so I make sure I have the poaching hotline on hand in case I have questions. That is also of course if my cell phone/onstar has a signal. That way I can always make sure I am well within the law if I question it. 

I will recount an experience where this saved my butt, although has had a big impact on my now 5 year old daughter. I was out at Electric Lake fishing with my wife and my daughter (who was 3 at the time) we all had our own poles. We had only been fishing for about an hour when we noticed a Wildlife truck parked about 50 yards from us, I baited my daughter pole and cast it out and sat her in her chair and handed her the pole, then I baited my wifes pole and then my own and cast it out and set it in the rod holder. Well my daughter got a fish on her line and was excited so I grabbed her and put her on my lap so I could help her hold her pole and help her reel it in. We got the fish into shore and my daughter was dancing around happy she got a fish. I stuck the fish on the stringer and re-baited my daughters pole and cast it back out again, about a minute later my line went tight and I had a fish on my line, as I am reeling in the fish I notice the wildlife truck heading towards us and don't think much of it other than maybe a check to make sure we have licenses. I get my fish ashore and it was small (maybe 5 inches) so I released it. The ranger comes up and asks for our licenses so my wife and I hand him our licenses. The ranger proceeds to tell me that I need a second pole license to help my daughter fish since I had a hold of her pole and assisted her reeling it in and was going to fine me and confiscate the fish my daughter had just caught. I am normally cool headed but this just ticked me off since I didn't read anything in the proclamation about it and even asked the ranger to show me where it stated it in the proclamation. He could not show me so I asked him to hold off while I called the poaching hotline for a second opinion and also wanted to know the name and of his CO and the number to the office he was working in. He would not give me his CO's name so I opened the door of my truck and hit the call button and called the poaching hotline and explained the scenerio to them. The whole time this ranger could hear everything that was going on and heard what the rules where and I was not in any violation of the law. That ranger turned 10 shades of red apologized heavily to me, my wife, and my daughter. My daughter is now scared that rangers are going to take her fish everytime she has one and either hides behind me or tries to set her fish free so the ranger won't take them when they come around. Not sure exactly how I am going to get my daughter from doing this I just hope with time it gets better. 

It is times like that however that I am glad there is a poaching hotline where you can get connected and get answers when you are unsure of how the law is approached. It also goes to show you that the people employed by the state to govern our wildlife programs are capable of making mistakes, which can cause others to be mis-informed which in the initial post seems to have been the case. Anyways just thought I would share, however I can tell you that I now buy a second pole license just to keep this from happening again, you never know the impact this can have on a young one thankfully my daughter still loves to go fishing other than her fear that a ranger might show up to take her fish away.


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## americanforkdude (Sep 13, 2007)

All I can say, is in either situation, if a fish cop wrote a ticket, he'de be a prick . Both are harmless. Let the little girl keep the fish. No matter how you look at it, both fish were caught legally, neither are going back in, who gives a crap on who takes what. Some peole worry about the law too much. In either case, you caught the fish legal, you never went over your limit, who cares who gets what. If a fish cop wrote a ticket, I would be a little ticked.


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## Grandpa D (Sep 7, 2007)

I was standing next to a CO when the exchange between the 2 anglers with the catfish and the trout happened.
The Officer stated that it was an illigal exchange because each angler donated one of their catch to another person at the pond.
He also said that there would have to be something worse happening before he would have cited anyone.


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