Taking publicly owned fish and putting them in private waters is a form of theft of public property, mild form maybe, but still, those fish belong to the public. There should be a $ amount paid for those shad that are taken to private water. The $ should go back into the public treasury. If a permit fee is the way to do it, then fine, set a permit fee and enforce it.

This is similar to high fencing private property to keep the publicly owned deer trapped inside so they can then sell those deer.

Extremely small % of folks take fish from public waters and "steal" them. So punish all of us? LLoyd5 great job. You must be a Bernie fan.

Do what? Where in the world did you get that?

You want to tax everyone because a few people take advantage of a resource.

What is punishing about that? You would only have to pay if you were taking shad from public waters for private water stocking. Everyone pays for a fishing license to maintain public water ecosystems. People who relocate shad are just taking money out of that pot, right?

No, not everyone purchases a fishing license to fish. People who fish inside the Texas state parks are allowed to fish without purchasing a fishing license. I do not agree with this policy. Let everyone purchase a fishing license. Everyone 17 and older. The state is loosing lots of money on weekends and holidays with this policy. Then asking for donations.

this is just another pay the state more money scheme , just like when rick perry was governor and he raised the price of fishing and hunting license saying all the money was going to go to the parks and wildlife dept. to build fish hatcheries and fund wildlife stocking and all the good [censored] we want to hear , only after all his [censored] was implemented our trustworthy politicians voted to run the money into the general fund so they can squander it off to their stupid [censored] that has nothing to do with what they said it would be used for.

Absolutely agree....It's mandatory to have this BS session....Your opinion doesn't matter... I believe they have made up their minds already. It's just a Paper Trail....got to have that!!

So if all water must be drained from a vessel and minnows released into the waters one is fishing before leaving, unless one has a receipt for the minnows from a merchant. Then how could anyone legally leave a body of water transporting shad in water to use in another resale or not? It seems to me this practice contradicts current laws and should be considered illegal.

Now, now, Jimbo. Here's what the announcement states:

"....requiring a permit for activities that can result in substantial harvest will allow the department to more fully monitor these activities to ensure their sustainability". See?

Oops! Wait....if the goal is to MONITOR activities (specifically by requiring the permit and thereby knowing who's doing the larger scale operations), how come they are charging $60? I'm sure there are administrative costs to having that permit system, so let's say they need $5 to cover that. Boom, done. Now they can monitor those who are collecting shad in 82+ quart containers and all is well because legit harvesters do have a permit just the same, right? Nooo, TPWD needs your $60! Can you spell "tax"?

I do not like this, but not because I wish to protect a few commercial operators. (The state claims about 10 are affected.) Shad are difficult to keep alive, and hard to catch at times. Numerous, true sport-only guys make a bait-trip just to catch shad to hold overnight for a planned fishing trip the next day. A bunch of those guys have already purchased round specialty bait tanks larger than 82 quarts to increase bait survival until they use it up. Those tanks were expensive. Now they'd have to get rid of it and buy a smaller one, or pay $60 per year. This, all because they do a few big trips each year where they gather bait one day to use on the same lake the next day. I DO NOT go for the typical TPWD-lazy "If you have a tank larger than 82 quart then you must be in business" mentality of this proposed rule. You're essentially guilty of possessing one container vs. another - even if there were only 20 shad it it! Really? I don't even own a typical shad tank, but I should be free to own whatever size I would like for my private fishing IF I FEEL INCLINED to do so.

The concern is stated to be the commercial use of the resource. Then let them make a regulation addressing just that. Leave the sportsman alone. Don't make an enthusiastic sportsman who fuels the economy via his purchases (boat, expensive tank, etc.) into a criminal simply because he holds a few pounds of shad in a large tank instead of a smaller one.