D
Dax420
Guest
I'm a bit PO'd so forgive my ranting.
I'm a "new" fisher who is soon to be an ex-fisher. Let me tell you a story.
Like many kids my dad took me fishing as a kid. I never really enjoyed the "sitting still waiting for the bobber to move" part so I never perused it as a hobby later in life.
Fast forward to today.
My friend buys a house on a creek feeding into a lake, there are lots of fish jumping in this creek. I'm not going to mention the lake, but it's within Region 2. This creek goes right through his backyard and we both thought it would be great to enjoy a few cold drinks, sit on a lounge chair and catch some dinner. So off I go, I purchase a fly rod, reel, fly line, flies, a vest, a bonker, a couple books. For me fly fishing solves the "waiting for the bobber to move" part of the sport I never really liked. It seems more like hunting with a hook, which sounds good to me. I spend a week watching videos learning how to cast a fly rod. I spend hours standing in a park casting a piece of yarn back and forth. I go online, buy a freshwater license. No salmon tags, I'm not interested in that, I just want a few pan fry trout for the dinner table. At this point I'm out several hundred dollars.
I sit down and read the regulations, I want to make sure everything I'm doing is legal. Barbless hooks, sure I have no problem with that. Hold on, catch and release of all wild trout... Ok, I don't really care if it's a hatchery trout or a wild trout on my plate. So lets keep looking through the regulations to find out how to identify wild trout vs hatchery. Nothing. Zero. There is nothing I can find that shows how to identify hatchery trout. So I do some googling.
Yeah, it turns out we don' stock rivers/streams/creeks/sloughs with trout in region 2.
So unless I'm missing something here, I can't catch one of the numerous trout in this stream and eat it. If I want to catch a trout and eat it, I have to go to one of the "family fishing lakes" that gets stocked with lake trout.
WTF?
Am I totally out to lunch thinking that I should be able to catch a fish and eat it for dinner? I don't want to catch 50 a day, deplete all the fish or whatever, but not even 1 fish for supper? This place has tons of trout, you could chuck a rock in the water it would hit 2 of them.
I have to admit that maybe I should have done this backwards. I should have read the regulations before buying gear. But honestly I never in my wildest dreams imagined that you can't keep the fish you catch. I understand catch limits and have no issues with that, and I know that many people voluntarily release some of the fish they catch which is awesome. But again, not even a single fish? You have got to be kidding me.
It seems pretty stupid to say you can't keep wild trout, but not have any hatchery trout that you can keep.
I'm tempted to phone up the MOE and demand a refund for my fishing license.
I'm a "new" fisher who is soon to be an ex-fisher. Let me tell you a story.
Like many kids my dad took me fishing as a kid. I never really enjoyed the "sitting still waiting for the bobber to move" part so I never perused it as a hobby later in life.
Fast forward to today.
My friend buys a house on a creek feeding into a lake, there are lots of fish jumping in this creek. I'm not going to mention the lake, but it's within Region 2. This creek goes right through his backyard and we both thought it would be great to enjoy a few cold drinks, sit on a lounge chair and catch some dinner. So off I go, I purchase a fly rod, reel, fly line, flies, a vest, a bonker, a couple books. For me fly fishing solves the "waiting for the bobber to move" part of the sport I never really liked. It seems more like hunting with a hook, which sounds good to me. I spend a week watching videos learning how to cast a fly rod. I spend hours standing in a park casting a piece of yarn back and forth. I go online, buy a freshwater license. No salmon tags, I'm not interested in that, I just want a few pan fry trout for the dinner table. At this point I'm out several hundred dollars.
I sit down and read the regulations, I want to make sure everything I'm doing is legal. Barbless hooks, sure I have no problem with that. Hold on, catch and release of all wild trout... Ok, I don't really care if it's a hatchery trout or a wild trout on my plate. So lets keep looking through the regulations to find out how to identify wild trout vs hatchery. Nothing. Zero. There is nothing I can find that shows how to identify hatchery trout. So I do some googling.
Yeah, it turns out we don' stock rivers/streams/creeks/sloughs with trout in region 2.
So unless I'm missing something here, I can't catch one of the numerous trout in this stream and eat it. If I want to catch a trout and eat it, I have to go to one of the "family fishing lakes" that gets stocked with lake trout.
WTF?
Am I totally out to lunch thinking that I should be able to catch a fish and eat it for dinner? I don't want to catch 50 a day, deplete all the fish or whatever, but not even 1 fish for supper? This place has tons of trout, you could chuck a rock in the water it would hit 2 of them.
I have to admit that maybe I should have done this backwards. I should have read the regulations before buying gear. But honestly I never in my wildest dreams imagined that you can't keep the fish you catch. I understand catch limits and have no issues with that, and I know that many people voluntarily release some of the fish they catch which is awesome. But again, not even a single fish? You have got to be kidding me.
It seems pretty stupid to say you can't keep wild trout, but not have any hatchery trout that you can keep.
I'm tempted to phone up the MOE and demand a refund for my fishing license.