On 4/5/10 8:00 AM, dr.narcidan wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
dr.narcidan wrote:
Larry L wrote:
"mr.rapidan" wrote:
a day before the
official day -

dare we inquire about the legality?

I wonder about that, I guess. But honestly, I always figured if I'm
fishing dry flies, catch and release on an unstocked, wilderness
stream, what difference does the calendar make? I'm properly
licensed.

The calendar makes the difference between poaching and fishing
legally. If I were to see someone poaching I'd be on the cell
phone in a nanosecond to report them to the authorities.

Poaching sucks.


Hey, Ken - well, it would be funny watching you waiting for a signal
in this little canyon. No E or 3g, either.

But, seriously - I'll check the regs to see if what I'm doing is ok.
But if I'm not taking any out, and if I'm not getting in between the
dude dumping a bunch of hatchery fish into the drink and a father and
daughter team yanking out a 19" palamino a few hours later for the
obligatory newspaper shot, then what am I hurting?

Maybe I pay my license and trout stamp fees so that the hordes stay on
the stocked streams, filling buckets with fish that are still dizzy
from being rounded up out of their hatchery pens, put on a truck, and
then dumped into a stream so I can go do my thing in the wilderness,
even if it's a day early.

It could be like that quip about prostitution - you're not paying for
the sex, you're paying them to leave quietly. I'm not paying for the
right to fish unmanaged, public waters in unmanaged, public lands, I'm
paying to have all those rainbows and browns dumped into easily
accessible waters, to have the stocking schedules published, to keep
people away from the streams I like to fish.

I've never considered what I'm doing poaching. But I suppose most
poachers would say that. I'll find out if flyfishing dry flies on
unstocked, remote streams is regulated the same way as stocked
streams. And if what I'm doing is against regs, I'll talk to my
friends to see if we can figure out the assumptions and
rationalizations we used, long ago, to be comfortable with our
behavior.

I don't know about Pennsylvania but fisheries management in
the Midwest includes a closed season so the trout, especially
wild brookies, can spawn and reproduce without angling pressure.
The closed season doesn't have anything to do with hatchery
trucks or hordes or the fact that you bought a trout stamp.

Rationalize all you want but fishing for trout when the trout
season is closed is poaching. Period.

--
Ken Fortenberry