Re: NANFA-- Re: Captive-bred fish

R. W. Wolff (choupiqu_at_wctc.net)
Fri, 7 Sep 2001 13:28:59 -0500

Maybe the scare comes from an inborn sense that its not right to do this.
The reason is the laws are not clear on collecting, or in some states a
blanket rule of no collecting at all. I am sure many have heard at aquarium
get togethers and the mention of keeping fish one caught comes up, sometimes
a gasp is heard and following that the comment, "but that's illegal".
Wisconsin is part way there now. With the new regulations for 2001 it
outlines how to go about keeping game fish species. Unfortunatly it does
not outline smaller "forage and rough" fish species. Thats too bad, since
the bulk of what many people would like to keep are darters, shiners, and
smaller members of fish from the families of fish that make up popular
gamefish. One dissappointing things is orange spotted sunfish are now in
the panfish category, so they must be caught on hook and line, and count
towards the bag limit of 50, or daily limit of 25. It was a bait fish
previous, so could be seined, and counted towards the 600 fish limit ( the
limit that a regular fishing license covers). That said, you can read into
the rules that you could legally keep 600 darters, for instance, but it
really does not say that. So technically, is it legal or not? I would
guess if there is no law against it, and you can legally catch and keep them
for bait, it should be safe to assume that they could be kept in an
aquarium. It's just that those assumptions can make someone a bit nervous.
Ray

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