Poachers-If You See Somethin Say Somethin

[WakenLake]

A guy got busted on the fishing dock at cedar ridge with 56 crappie, ALL SHORT with the shortest one at 6 inches.

Several walleye 11" and under, all in 5 gallon buckets with no water.

18 fishing poles rigged to the front of the dock all unlabeled.

Surely there are enough keeper size fish at stockton to not have to do that.

[gramps50]

Probably didn't have a fishing license either. This little lake (5 acres) that I fish has some nice size Bluegill in it but because of the size of it the limit is 10 fish total with only 1 LMB of 18". This guy had a whole stringer of bluegill. I mentioned to him that the limit was 10, he says yea but I have never seen a Conservation Agent up here, have you? I replied yeas he was here yesterday, really nice guy. The guy fished about another 10 minutes and left. I think the had 12 BG but I believe if I hadn't said something he would have kept fishing. I haven't seen him fishing there since.

I have the contact information for the conservation agents in my area in my phone, just for cases like that. I also have the number for the Missouri's Operation Game Thief 1-800-392-1111 you can call them from any place in the state and they will find someone to respond. The number is answered 24/7

[Quillback]

A guy got busted on the fishing dock at cedar ridge with 56 crappie, ALL SHORT with the shortest one at 6 inches.

Several walleye 11" and under, all in 5 gallon buckets with no water.

18 fishing poles rigged to the front of the dock all unlabeled.

Surely there are enough keeper size fish at stockton to not have to do that.

I hope they wrote him a big ticket. If a person is going to keep dinky little fish, why not load up on bluegills, there's probably a bazillion of them in Stockton.

[charliehorsejigs]

I hope they let him load the fish in his vehicle before they arrested him. That way they can confiscate his vehicle too! Jail time is not enough punishment for crimes like this. Back in the late 70's they caught two guys on stockton that were over their limit and undersized on bass, walleye, northern, and crappie. They arrested them at the ramp as soon as they had loaded their boat on the trailer. They went to court and the judge took all their fishing gear and their whole fishing rig. The judge then said that if the agents had let them pull the rig out of the water before arresting them he could have taken their brand new Ford Bronco also. Funny thing is when they had the county auction they went to buy it back and the judge had a restraining order against them that prevented them from bidding on it. He even went so far as to contacting the DMV to stop them or anyone in their immediate families from licensing it if they found a way to get it back. I love that judge. Need more of them.

[Justin B]

Well keeper size crappie have been kind of hard to find.

[lil sac mitch]

I agree with Justin, out of over 200 fish I caught on Saturday, It took me nearly ten hours to catch my limit, and most females were in deeper water, but it also allowed me to pick up some nice walleye. But even if keepers are hard to get it does not give people the right to keep fish that are illegal and will provide for more keepers in the future.

[jbeenemd]

They are out there watching. I went down to Highpoint and was fishing off the bank away from the ramp in the woods Saturday morning. I recently had rotator cuff surgery and not back up to fishing much. Fished for an hour before I had to take a break due to shoulder pain, went back to the truck, sat and ate breakfast then back to fishing. I had cast out a couple of times when the warden asked from behind me "Catching anything? Slipped right up on me. I know she was watching me in the truck and thinking "what the heck is he doing?" She was really nice. We talked for several minutes before she asked for my license. Seemed surprised to see that I had a lifetime permit. By the way, had no bites and only took home a couple of ticks.

Jackie

[gramps50]

Well keeper size crappie have been kind of hard to find.

So that makes it OKAY to keep the smaller one?

[Justin B]

It was a joke, I would never keep a short one, wouldn't want to pay the fine.

[ddhlakebound]

What about throwing back a short fish that was hooked deep/gill, and you know it's not going to make it? I've kept short fish before, and counted it against my limit, instead of throwing it back to die and taking another keeper sized one. Aside from that though, no justifiable reason to keep shorties.