Well Skinee, that would be illegal no matter what, now wouldn’t it?
There are all kinds of gray areas aka holes in the law as it is written and there always will be.
Lets say you are bringing in a 99.9 & 9/10ths lb wahoo. You get the fish boatside and a 527 lb man eating mako comes up and bites off the tail (about 9.9 & 9/10ths lbs worth). Who’s going to release the 90 lbs of wahoo that is left? I wouldn’t. We see pics of fish brought in all the time without the head or tail intact due to bite offs from sea monsters. I haven’t heard of any tickets but I wouldn’t be surprised if someone got a ticket for this type thing at some point in history… but hopefully not.
In my opinion the officers should look at it this way:
Ask themselves, why is this law in place? Answer - to keep dishonest people from taking fish illegally. Now technically this wahoo still measures out to legal length even without the tail, however some officers might say, “the law states that you cannot land a fish in your possession without head and tail intact, therefore you broke the law.” In this case its obvious no one is trying to break the law. Common sense should be required for law enforcement hirees IMO but it is what it is.
Disclaimer - I’m not saying its ok to fillet fish on the boat as long as you leave head and tail intact. I don’t know if it is or not, but would like to know. If I had to guess I’d say it probably isn’t…
And yes, some do still use flounder strips for flounder baits </font id=“red”> way up here, just as the real (emphasis on real) fishermen did back in the good old days.
Catching Gamefish using gamefish is not only illeagal, but unethical.
I know if you get caught with fillets you can get charged as 1 fillet 1 fish.(Happened to a friend and very $$$) Call me crazy, but the only reason to clean fish offshore is carcass removal or save time. If you do it and still keep the carcasses onboard it seems like splitting hairs.
quote:Catching Gamefish using gamefish is not only illeagal, but unethical.
It is not illegal in NC. Don’t know about other states but definitely not illegal to use flounder belly as bait. As for unethical, I don’t see the harm…what is the difference between keeping your legal limit and eating everything or keeping your limit and eating everything minus a flounder belly or two? Not as much meat on the white side anyway. JMHO. Some might say catching an undersize flounder is unethical because a certain percentage are gut hooked and end up dead anyway. Or what about the average fish cleaner…do you think they get all the good meat when they fillet? I’ve seen many a rack with good meat still attached which gets thrown away…
Everyone has a different view of ethics…to each his own and I respect your opinion even if I don’t share it.