Weird Fishing Rules

Many of us fish around the country and I was wondering how many of you have come across some interesting, frustration or down right dumb rules for fishing in some places or states.

Closed seasons for bass.

Where? What was the season and punishment if broken?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/shopkarls.com/blog/bass-fishing-seasons/%3famp=1

Mark, I was going to say the same thing. Learned about It when I joined bass boat central a while back. Crazy

Yes I fished Lake Casitas in Cali a few years ago and there are a lotta DUMB rules.

1. Can't get on the water until they open the park gate at 7 am
2. Can't pee in the lake (they have floating porta-potties(
3. Can't have pets in the campground because they're afraid the pet will pee & it will run off in lake
4. Can't be on the water after 5 pm. They sound a horn and you had better be off the lake
5. Can't smoke on the lake (I don't but they are afraid you will throw cig butt in lake)

If you break any of their rules and they catch you it is a $500 Fine!

And I'm NOT kidding!!

All sounds reasonable….except the times.

We use to fish an Oxbow Lake off the Ohio River, which was a pay lake by the day in the 60's/70's.
- You had to have a good looking girl in the boat with you; or you would not get through the gate. $4 per boat.
- I dressed my partner up as a girl many times, just to get in. Wig, falsees and the whole nine yards. Always ask if it was ok for HE/SHE to fish in a swim suit and we were in.
- The old man sat on the pourch and watched us through binoculars. Kinda like Deliverance.
- He had one trotline set in the lake and would fix lunch for us each trip.
- 18 paper plates with fish of all species, ell, turtle, snake, muskrat, beaver, and any thing else he caught in traps.
- You had to guess what was on each paper plate as you went down the line tasting. The name was written on the bottom of each paper plate.
- If you guess 10 correct out of 18, lunch was free. Otherwise $2.50 each. Fresh water Ell was the best.
- Best food you ever ate. The old man could cook. Some smoked, fried, lemon - butter, salt and pepper. Homemade hot salsa with fried chip potatos.

One day we get there in 1975 and a old Woman came out to the gate. I had never seen her in all those years. Cecil has passed, she says. We will have lunch at Noon. He told me to feed you guys for free and your partner can take off that fake S#$$. You never fooled Cecil; he got a kick out ot it. We had Tuna style Carp sandwiches and fried potato chips. Now I know the rest of the story.

Pyramid Lake in Nevada is on the Paiute Indian Reservation. Locals (Paiute's) can use any baits (live or artificial) visitor's must ONLY use artificial baits.
Closed bass season in Minnesota.

That’s greatness.

Fished it a few times. The 7 rule didn't apply to some of the locals. Would see a boat or two pulling out as we were allowed in. Was awesome when the trout truck pulled up and started releasing fish. Bass had a hay day looked like someone was throwing hand grenates in the water.

Does anyone remember the years anglers had to pin their fishing license above their waist to their shirt or hat in plain view to legally fish in California? The skimpy safety pins that were supplied were doomed to fail and big bucks were made from lost license replacement fees.

The permit you have to buy for your boat alone to fish San Vincente in California, plus an extra $12 a person. You basically have to buy a permit for your boat at each lake in California.

There are some restrictions on hooks and line for some lakes too, don't remember off the top of my head

Or you have to take a leak????

Squaw Creek is one I don't get. It's a private lake but I have seen the Game Warden out there a few times

I wonder if kayaks kayaks, canoes, and Float tubes are exempt from permits?

Not exempt in California because Kayaks Kayaks, Canoes, and float tubes are known to the state of california to cause birth defecdts, cancer, heatburn, hangnails, acne and the list goes on....

Ive heard a lot of those lakes are great fishing....or at least they were. Ive heard the Trolling motor only lakes are good fishing too! Ive talked to some swimbait guys that say giants are still being caught in cali, just kept under wraps pretty well by locals. I wonder what their tourney scene is like with nutty rules like this or TM only lakes

My bud that lives near Casitas told me they stopped planting trout years ago. When that happened the giants went away there. Castaic became over run with stripers. I think only a small hand ful of lakes still get trout and it is nothing like it was. The CPWD ran outta money.

I bet ol Cecil laughed all day long when he saw ya'll at the gate

Maine.

No lead whatsoever unless it is painted

South zone lakes only 2 bass may be kept with only one over 14" but the North zone there are no limits on size or numbers. (I think this is in an effort to protect cold water fisheries.)

Closed seasons

Special regs on thousands of ponds and lakes.

They will soon outlaw the use of soft plastics. Lots of talk on this up there. Every craft must be registered and thus taxed. (BTW, this pertains to bicycles too)

Most game species of fish (Bass, Muskies, Walleye) in Wisconsin do not "open" until the first weekend in May. Muskies have a later opening date in the northern part of the state than the southern part.

Not sure. All I know is I flew out to San Diego to fish with a friend of mine stationed at Mirmar San Diego.

It was like damn near $50 for both of us plus his bass boat. Just absolutely ridiculous. He told me there's literally no free public ramps like there are in Texas

Actually that reminds me! The lakes I fished in southern Cal with my marine corp buddy all had floating porta chitters on the water. Like you'd literally be in 100ft of water... Pull up, tie your boat off, and you straight up had a full on chitter and sink with A/C and everything in the middle of the lake. There were multiples of them too

I took pics of them just cause I've never seen that before. If I can find them in my mess of phone pics I'll post them up

I think they got rid of the closed season for most game species with the exception of Musky. It's still catch and release, but at least you can fish for them. But yes, until a few years ago this was true. It was super frustrating. Even more frustrating is that you were allowed to fish, but you couldn't "target" game species between March 1 and May 5th (or something like that). It was up to the game warden as to what counted as targeting. There were all kinds of sub rules as well. You could target giant female walleye on the great lakes for catch and release, but if you caught the game warden on the wrong day they could say you were illegally bass fishing with your lipless you were using for trophy walleye.

Real men hang it off the side

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqLnBQA0KEc&ab_channel=MikeIaconelliFishing

I fished a private lake one time with rules. One rule was, everytime you caught a bass, you had to take a shot of Patron.