BUT - if you want to get technical - it is permitted to “donate” fish away from the waters. So I’ll look at is as I donated those extra fish to my wife and daughter. They held on to them until I cooked them all together.
And technically - they ate them, so I ain’t lie-in
You can donate them to other family members. Then when everybody has enough for a meal you can cook 'em up and eat 'em. (the fish, not the family)[crazy]
Just make sure you have the donation slip filled out before you go fishing the next day. It probably isn’t going to come up, but if someone noticed you taking fish home every day and had called the fish cop, he would be able to cite you if you don’t have everything in order.
Here’s the one thing about the guidebook that still could use some explanation. I talked with the Governor’s office a few years ago about the whole “fishing while in possession of a limit” thing. The next quote from the guidebook is a little bit vague.
• You may not fish at waters that have a specific bag or size limit if you possess fish in violation of that limit. For example, if the cutthroat trout limit at a river you’d like to fish is two cutthroats, and you harvested three cutthroats earlier that day at another water, you can’t fish at that river until you consume at least one of the cutthroats you harvested earlier. You may continue to fish while in possession of a full limit, but you must immediately release any additional fish you catch.
You can’t legally eat one of those cutthroats that day (or donate it) and continue to fish. You’ve bagged your limit for that day. In fact, you’re over the limit for that water, and that is why you can’t fish there. Or if the fish in your possession don’t comply with size limits at the river in the example, you’re in violation.
So riddle me this - a community pond has a 2 fish limit, but Utah has a 4 trout limit. So is it legal to hold 2 days worth of a community pond limit, but still be within the Utah limit?
No. If you have 2 trout at home, you cannot keep any more trout while you are fishing at a body of water that has a 2 trout limit. You could keep 2 trout at a community pond, and then go keep 2 more at a body of water that has a 4 trout limit. You can keep 8 Channel Catfish if you catch them in waters that aren’t community ponds. But you can’t keep 2 a day for 4 days at the community ponds. Kinda tough for the fish cop to prove where you caught them, so they make it the way it is. If you were under suspicion, and they get the search warrant, and you’ve got more than the limit for where you were fishing in your possession (including your home), you’re busted. Here’s a $64,000 question. If you have 2 fish, say catfish, in your fridge, can you fish at a community pond and keep 2 trout? The limit at the community pond is 2 fish. Of any species. [crazy][crazy] If there are loopholes to be found, someone will find them. They’re (the UDWR) just trying to close as many as they can. And they are trying to keep the community ponds stocked for more than just a day or two after the hatchery truck arrives.
I would rather see someone collect a few limits to make a meal, instead of seeing the cormorants get the fish, but the law was written for a purpose, and I have to agree with it. There is no sense in having a defined limit, and then letting someone come back several times a day, or week to fill up the larder. It doesn’t matter whether we’re talking fresh or frozen fish. If you wanna catch fish, go fishin’. If’n ya wanna eat fish, eat 'em fresh. If’n ya wanna have lots of fish in the freezer, go buy Mrs. Paul’s.
Whoa…whoa…whoa. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. And sometimes they overlap and sometimes they make no sense.