yeah, you are right. it ain't stealing.
it is interfernce with the legal take of game, but its not stealing.

just for the sake of arguement i'll keep this going. i was planning to let it die.

its only stealling if you take something that is possessed by someone else. are you saying all the fish on your line are in your possession? what if there are 26 fish?

Sounds like some are taking this way to personal. The guy was just asking a legal question as a point of discussion and stated that he does not intend to check others trot lines. Living life that high strung can't be good for you.

Why ask a question if you are just going to argue against the answers that don't agree with your own opinions?

I believe it is called trolling.

We also have to keep things in perspective on this thread!

Some mention was made about a "Snake Charmer" putting a hole in a boat? Maybe a toy boat!

That little ole Snake Charmer has a spread at 5 feet bigger than my aunt Viola's handmade bedspread!

To do any real damage, you would have to have that little popsicle loaded with a slug! And you don't go "Charmin" for snakes with SLUGS!

Then you have the argument that....if you got close enough, the spread of shot would not matter. With this argument, a person would have to be as close as a foot or two away from that big old fiberglass honker that is causing all the trouble. You have to take into consideration that the honker driving perpetrator would "hold still" while a person started popping with that single shot Charmer! That might not happen! Could be, he would hit that throttle and blast that little 12 foot, 79 pound JonBoat all to smittereens!

No.....I am going to have to say the Snake Charmer is only good for charming snakes....not good at all for sinking a half ton Skeeter with full auxillary equipment and hopped up 200 hp fuel injected motor!

I think the best thing to do is collect all the fish TOGETHER....share the preparation of said fish......and have a big fish fry!!!

And save a place for me!!

May not be illegal but it will get your arse whooped.

This is all crazy! Look at my post again concerning the regulations. Ya'll are talking about "if properly tagged and illegal lines" how in the hades will you know if its legal or not unless you pull it up? The blasted tag is several feet under water. Getting your a$$ shot isn't worth it. I can just see getting a line fowled in your trolling motor or main motor, your untangling it and some idiot shooting you over it. And as for those willing to shoot a game thief or suspected game thief I'm sure the state will be happy to direct ya'll to that little room in Huntsville. Shooting a boat full of holes will get you up to 25 yrs.

man, this has really gotten fun.

so does anyone know if its illegal to run some elses line? LOL

common sense would tell ya it's not legal ... it is stated in oklahoma regulations so that it'll not leave any doubt in the minds of morons that you can't tamper with anyone else's lines but I guess texas figures that it's citizens are more intellectual than okies do and figure there's no need to waste typing since our residents here in texas are smart enough and have enough common sense to leave other people's property alone. I guess they didn't take into account that silly folks might move to texas and figure that if no one is around that they can do whatever they wish hahaha. I'm pretty certain that if a game ranger caught someone messing with a line that wasn't their's they'd get a big ole fine slapped on them. if the guy said hey ... this is my buddy's line and he asked me to run it for him today ... game ranger callse the dude on the tag and says hey ... do you know this knothead so n so ... nope ... never heard of him ... then ya get checked for everything short of a strip search for lying to the game warden and I ain't so sure that a game ranger wouldn't slap on the rubber gloves and do some probing just to learn ya not to lie to him. then he finds some little obscure something wrong and he writes ya a ticket for that too instead of the usual warning for minor infractions ... by the time he's done with ya then ya figure out that it's not cool to mess with another person's trotlines or property of any kind. just go ahead and give it a shot ... you'll get caught one day by the owner of the line or the game ranger. may not be able to find this in the online regulations but they have a big ole long booklet printed out that probably has it in there. I think my cousin picked one up when we were down there last week so I'll see if I can't locate it and read through it.

Chuck;

I won't be too hard to tell the one that shot up my boat, he will be the one floating dead because I don't carry scatter guns.

hmm

michial, I guess by saying that then you're one to go around checking other people's trotlines for them?

How hard is "if it's not yours you have no legal right to mess with it"? Even if the gear tag is outdated which would surely be an act of forgetfullness or being in a hurry it is up to the game warden to give the ticket not any self righteous zealot sneaking aroung the lake fooling with other peoples property. If I catch you messing with my lines why wouldn't I have the right to make a citizens arrest and turn you over to the cops or the game warden? If I see you taking fish off one of my line is that not stealing? I for one am surprised at the number of simple minded people posting on this thread.

How hard is "if it's not yours you have no legal right to mess with it"? Even if the gear tag is outdated which would surely be an act of forgetfullness or being in a hurry it is up to the game warden to give the ticket not any self righteous zealot sneaking aroung the lake fooling with other peoples property. If I catch you messing with my lines why wouldn't I have the right to make a citizens arrest and turn you over to the cops or the game warden? If I see you taking fish off one of my line is that not stealing? I for one am surprised at the number of simple minded people posting on this thread.