I had my 3yo son with me catfishing one day. I caught my 25 limit and headed to the ramp. There was a gentleman at the ramp with 10-15 nice size cats. He asked if I wanted them and I said yes but I would have to cull some of my littler ones for his bigger. He had them on a stronger and just handed me the whole stringer. My son and I were sitting in the boat on the bank while I pulled the catfish off of the stringer.
Next thing I know I look up and the game Warden is watching me. I immediately got scared because technically I was 10-15 over limit. I explained the situation and he asked if that was my son and I said yesir. He said well he can have 25 too. Awesome. I kept all the cats and headed home. My son does have poles and does fish but obviously I have to help him.

My takeaway from this situation, the GW used discretion given the situation.

If that's not legal then doing catch and release after you have a limit would also be illegal. Check the TPWD website. Basics of law is that yes you can give your catches to someone else, so for example if you have your limit you can keep fishing and start putting your fish on someone else's stringer. Children count as other people, separate # of fish for counting. With that said, you can't carry more than your limit if you're on the bank. If you're catching sand bass in the creek and your 7 year old has a limit and you do too, you can't carry their fish out too they have to carry it. That's having over your limit.

If you're on a boat and using a common live well the #s are pooled. You can have one person toss 40 crappie in the well and another person 10, and then split it 25/25 taking them home. This is why some guides will catch fish with you and toss them into the live well and you take home (8 from guide and 17 personal, guides can't keep fish while on boat so can't keep extra fish above YOUR limit). Bank guide can have their own limit while guiding, just not on boat.

Hope this is clear.

Eric

Eric, you may want to read the definition of "daily bag limit". Or maybe I need to re-read it because I misunderstood it.

I've gone through the website, the admin code, and the TPW code, yet my understanding is that the daily bag limit applies to individuals, and gifted fish are considered part of the daily bag limit of the person who actually caught them--not the person who possesses them.