Y'know, sometimes you come across a person who is sincere and really means well. But they are so very wrong in their facts. Case in point . . .

Was getting ready to launch my (new!) kayak at Lewisville lake and there was a gentleman using a cast net to catch bait. He was throwing back sunfish, and I suggested that he should keep them for catfish or hybrid bait. He told me that you can't keep sunfish from a cast net because they're game fish.

Then he showed me a small spotted bass that was in his net - calling it a black bass - and said that keeping one of those would be a $2,500 fine. I looked at it and said that it was a spotted bass with no size limit (granted, few of us want to keep a 3"-4" fish). He insisted that a "spotted bass" was an entirely different kind of fish, which he called a warmouth (I suspect he meant green sunfish). Then he said that the minimum size for ANY gamefish is ten inches ... even spotted bass or yellow bass. I just didn't know how to respond to that, so I said "good luck fishing" and paddled off.

So, on the one hand, it was nice to see a conservation-minded attitude ... but on the other hand, it's disturbing when someone has their facts so very wrong. Maybe I should've handed him my law school business card and told him to contact me in three years?

Catch & release does not just apply to fish, eh? Good job.

"The trouble ain't what people don't know, it's what they know that ain't so."

Thanks for trying Zack.
I do know what you mean about trying to educate someone who is so obviously mistaken but I my experience usually turns out about like yours did.
I've been known to give away a copy of TPWD Outdoor Annual to people like that a time or 2.

OTOH, it's nice to hear of someone being so cautious of what they kept as opposed to putting every 6" black bass and crappie they get into an ice chest.

What get's caught and kept illegally from cast nets is a real sore subject that has steadily gotten worse and worse over the last 20 years.
I don't see it getting better until some MAJOR changes are made with enforcement that has some teeth in it but we can't just give up.

Interesting...and this man is probably a fishing forum member as well, and will probably start his own topic tomorrow talking about his experience with you! Laughs...

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Sunfish can be pretty good bait, especially when you cannot get shad or minnows, so it is good advice you provided to him.

The fine for keeping either a Largemouth or Spotted Black Bass caught with castnet would be the same I imagine, if you had a game warden closely following the letter of the law.

Yeah, neither of us had any disagreement on that point. His notion of a universal minimum size limit is what caught me by surprise.

Too many people believe what they are told from people they trust. Lots of people just go with whatever info they got from relatives or friends and never do their own research.

Never could convince my grandfather that there was NO difference in a flathead, yella cat, or opelousas. To him they were all different. Same with "high fin" blues and "river" blues....both different.

It's what he was taught and no book reading kid and for sure the internet weren't going to change his mind.