Well it is typical bureaucratic governmental bs wording. That way when one of the GW that wants to be a jerk that day can interpret to suit him. Don�t get me wrong 99% of GW�s are awesome and doing a great job. But most of us have seen the 1% at least once. The law is written in legalize terminology that we everyday folks will misinterprete to our detriment. As a guide who doesn�t sell bait I can have a 200 gallon tank of shad if I choose. The rest of you have to take your chances. Lol
I personally don�t think I would if I didn�t have a guide license. The word interpretation to me says a container of 82 quarts volume. That normally means total capacity including water bait microorganisms and anything else inside the container. I know it sucks trying to keep 75 or more shad alive in less than 23 gallons (82 qts) of water. My

Edit: If you are using the bait on the body of water where you caught it you are fine. Just don�t leave that lake body with them in a container larger than 82 qts.

I have never heard of anyone getting cited for transferring bait between bodies of water whether its shad, perch, or minnows. If the GWs start enforcing this rule then they must have just about everything else under control. I'm not advocating that anyone break the law but some regulations are so poorly written that a case needs to be run through the courts before anyone really knows what is enforceable. What is the wildlife purpose for this regulation, if you can transport one shad between lakes then I dont see the purpose in limiting recreational fishermen to a tank size since the number of shad transported is not regulated. There doesn't seem to be a conservation purpose to the law, maybe it's to give professional guides an advantage over the recreational anglers.

Excellent points! I�m not so sure the rules give any favor to guides though, because the part where it says guides that furnish shad as part of their service do not need a permit is to give them a break by not saying they are directly selling the shad and therefore require a permit. But both guides and non guides alike do not require a permit if they are collecting and using shad on the same lake.

Not defending it but that�s what I noticed when I was researching the topic a while back that that seemed to be the context. I loved your comment over how this isn�t directly even talking about numbers of shad but rather volume of water capacity of a tank so how is it really about shad limitation. You may put 10 shad in the tank or cram 500 in there for a short period of time but that doesn�t matter or regulated.

I think in part they are playing the zebra mussel tune some more trying to slow down the spread knowing it�s inevitable since the zm made it thousands of miles from the Great Lakes. Also in part to stop people from harvesting so much of the shad we pay to have stocked for our use on a given body of water. Ultimately it boils down to revenue for the state coffers. IMHO