I went out to fish at 4 am and saw the same guy that was there at 9:00 pm last night when I called it a night. Thought nothing about it, until I decided to go and try a spot past him. when i got close enough to talk i asked him how he was doing and he told no good all too small to keep. Well I understood bite was slow but mine were keepers, when I went to walk past him a wal-mart bag on the ground started flopping. Scared me at first but when i took a closer look I saw several small crappie in the bag. I asked him if he had any keepers and he told me no and immediately put his makeshift tackle box on top of the bag of fish.
Well you know what I did, I called Game Thief, told them what was going on. 45 minutes later a warden shows up and asked if I was the one that called and so I showed him who to look at.
The guy knew right off he was in for it, and met the game warden license in hand so he wouldn't come all the way to him. he lied to the warden and told him he had no keepers and then the bag started flopping again...LOL That part was funny.
after it was all said and done there was (1) 14" (9)9.5" and (1) 8.5". The warden only wrote him for the 8.5" and told him since he was fishing strictly for food he would let him go on the others. and also told him he could never fish in that area ever again.

anyways to make a long story short if any of you fish in denton county and ever call game thief here is a number that will go strait to dispatch in stead of austin, and will get a faster response to catch the people.

940 349 1600.

just thought I would share my story

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Don't let showyriver2 influence you. You did the right thing ...food fishing or not, he broke the law

+1

the law doesn't sat if your food fishing its ok if that was the case everyone would say that. there are limits for a reason.

+500

Who cares what Snowyriver2 thinks, we have to abide by the law.

i agree. but some times you have to do the right thing. maybe that person really needs the food. times are hard. but on the other hand your right. then everyone can use that excuse. one of them double edged swords.

I try to be as legal as the next guy, but I'm sure there have been times I mighta kept a 9.5 inch or one that I tried to stretch his lip to make it 10. Now if the guy has several 7,8,9 inchers thats one thing, but to bust him for a 9.5 I dont think is right. How many times have you caught a 9.5 and you knew he was gonna die if you threw him back. shoulg you throw him back or keep it and eat it. Are you so righteous, you never go 40 in a 35 mile zone, you always wear your seat belt, you always use your turn signal, you never run a yellow light. I'm all for game laws but I dont think I woulda called the law on him. Like I said if he had a stringer full of undersize , now thats a diffrent situation.

Dude, he had 10 undersize fish...not 1

i feel thats why the coast fishing is like it is i myself feel you done right

I guess I should start keeping undersize fish too, seeing as how I don't always follow the posted speed limit. I smoke cigarettes too, hell maybe I should try some crack.

Snowy, read the post he had 10 illegal fish. If you intentionally keep one or more short fish the warden should write a ticket for each one. I have no tolerance for anyone who takes advantage of OUR game or game laws.

thanks stucky,

he had 10 undersize fish

wow.. do you have children? would you like them to fish in the future?

fact is, if everyone did that then the fish population would diminish very quickly, theres a reason there is a size limit and it should be adhered too.

no, im no angel, i have a nice little wrap sheet (nothing major, POM when i was a teen, evading arrest on my motorcycle, dwi) but i respect the laws of the fish because i know why they are there.

let me ask you this, if you caught a 14" crappie in a cast net what would you do?


i have, that and a 3lb bass..

they went back in the water, no one was around, but if you can't be honest with yourself then what are you worth?