New DNR Striper Rules

Fishing Clubs Midlands Striper Club
21

Got ya, Jim. Thanks for all of the info. I dont like seeing fish floating everywhere either so we’ll just see how this shakes out.

Kind of ironic…but Randy’s boat is for sale. He emailed some pics to me the other day and I dont believe he’s planning to guide once it’s sold based on my interaction. How about a do-over on June! ( I’ve been friends with and known Randy for years and we’ve done some overseas package shipments to the troops together.)

PS. I’ve never seen big boy “panties”, though. Dont have any of those!! Hahaha!!!
Just messing with you, man! :slight_smile:

Billy

—Team Pitt Crew–
Sailfish 236CC

22
quote:
Originally posted by wildlifesc It's not difficult nor unclear. Catch 5, any size, and you're done during hot summer months. No culling, no catch & release.

You are correct that it is not unclear, but I disagree with your second sentence. Catch and release is specifically NOT defined as “taking” fish. It cannot be any more clear, per the law, that catch and release is absolutely legal up until you possess five fish.

Specfically, item 14:

(14) ‘Take’ means to catch, capture, gather, wound, kill, harvest, or remove, but does not include a catch and immediate release.</font id=“size3”></font id=“blue”>

I agree that once you “take and retain”, which is the definition of “possess” per the law, you cannot continue to fish. But certainly you can catch and release all you want per the law. Unless and until the law is rewritten or some other legal ruling is passed, DNR will be violating the law if they ticket anyone for catch and release prior to them possessing (i.e. taking and retaining) five fish.

NOT saying anything about whether it is good or bad policy or who should have done what. Not saying DNR won’t ticket you or me in a heartbeat if we do other than what you are saying. I’m just quoting the law, as passed. Still waiting for anyone to demonstrate that the law says otherwise. So far not seeing it.

Tidewater 196DC
Yamaha F115

Pungo 120
23
quote:
Originally posted by wildlifesc It's not difficult nor unclear. Catch 5, any size, and you're done during hot summer months. No culling, no catch & release.
quote:
Originally posted by JimIslander You are correct that it is not unclear, but I disagree with your second sentence. Catch and release is specifically NOT defined as "taking" fish. It cannot be any more clear, per the law, that catch and release is absolutely legal up until you possess five fish.

JimIslander, I disagree. The law is, again in my opinion, clear. Note the law reads, "50-13-230 (E) On Lake Murray and the middle reach of the Saluda River it is unlawful to possess more than five striped bass a day. From June first through September thirtieth, it is unlawful to take, attempt to take, or possess more than five striped bass a day.

The literal translation is this, you cannot ATTEMPT to take more than 5 striped bass in a day. Therefore, if you catch and release two fish, you are only then allowed to catch three more…whether by catch & release or placing them in your creel. Once you attempt to take 5 (which includes catch & release) by any means, you are done.

24
quote:
Originally posted by wildlifesc
quote:
Originally posted by wildlifesc It's not difficult nor unclear. Catch 5, any size, and you're done during hot summer months. No culling, no catch & release.
quote:
Originally posted by JimIslander You are correct that it is not unclear, but I disagree with your second sentence. Catch and release is specifically NOT defined as "taking" fish. It cannot be any more clear, per the law, that catch and release is absolutely legal up until you possess five fish.

JimIslander, I disagree. The law is, again in my opinion, clear. Note the law reads, "50-13-230 (E) On Lake Murray and the middle reach of the Saluda River it is unlawful to possess more than five striped bass a day. From June first through September thirtieth, it is unlawful to take, attempt to take, or possess more than five striped bass a day.

The literal translation is this, you cannot ATTEMPT to take more than 5 striped bass in a day. Therefore, if you catch and release two fish, you are only then allowed to catch three more…whether by catch & release or placing them in your creel. Once you attempt to take 5 (which includes catch & release) by any means, you are done.

Respectfully, per the law, attempt to take very specifically does not include catch and release, per item 14 as follows:

(14) ‘Take’ means to catch, capture, gather, wound, kill, harvest, or remove, <fo

25

Great Point JimIslander!

Here’s another question. If I have one other person on my boat, and we are fishing 6 rods. If my partner has caught his 5 fish limit, and sat down, and I have only caught 4, can I still have 6 rods in the water, or does that mean that my partner “is attempting to take more than 5 striped bass per day”?

Rick

26
quote:
Originally posted by Rick K

Great Point JimIslander!

Here’s another question. If I have one other person on my boat, and we are fishing 6 rods. If my partner has caught his 5 fish limit, and sat down, and I have only caught 4, can I still have 6 rods in the water, or does that mean that my partner “is attempting to take more than 5 striped bass per day”?

Rick

Per DNR: “An unlimited number of lawful fishing devices may be used if every boat occupant (who would normally be required to have a fishing license) possesses a valid fishing license.”

So no limit based on that. And since there is no guarantee that ANY of the six rods will catch a Striper, and you have the right to “take or attempt to take” stripers, no problem.

That of course is JimIslander talking. And that could lead to a ticket and even heavy fines if JimIslander is wrong. Which is why I listen to people other than myself much of the time, normally DNR folks and educated people like wildlifesc, Fishless1, and you before I actually go out and fish! :smiley:

Tidewater 196DC
Yamaha F115

Pungo 120
27
quote:
Originally posted by Fishless1

I agree with those who think the DNR interpretation is correct and is the way it should be. The law says it is illegal to TAKE, ATTEMPT TO TAKE, or POSSESS more than five striped bass a day.

The definition of TAKE in Bold Blue above is on the mark, but I do believe the ATTEMPT TO TAKE clause immediately following TAKE kicks the catch and release argument in the gonads.

I see your logic, Fishless1. So let’s check the boundaries of this statement. That often tells us what is true (at least in engineering problems).

Let’s imagine the following:

Boundary 1

Premise 1. I have no intention of keeping any stripers.
Premise 2. Taking, by definition, does not include catch and immediate release.
Premise 3: I DO intend to catch and release any fish that eats my bait.

Conclusion: I don’t violate the law as written.

This is logically sound. The conclusion is valid, and the premises are true.

Boundary 2

Premise 1. I intend to keep 5 or less stripers.
Premise 2. Taking, by definition, does not include catch and immediate release.
Premise 3: I DO intend to catch and release any fish that I don’t keep.

Conclusion: I don’t violate the law as written. I have not attempted to take more than 5 stripers.

What they left out of the definitions is the definition of “attempting to take”. However, since taking does not include catch and immediate release, anytime you catch and immediately release, you CANNOT have “attempted to take”. You can only attempt to take if you don’t catch and release and fulfill the other parts of the definition.

To be fair, they could call a hook penetrating the jaw of a fish wounding, but (again) if you catch and immediately release the fish, it nulifies ALL of the other parts of the definition, by definition It is a logical tautol

28

If the final take-home lesson on all this is that you may not catch and release more than 5 fish on any given day (regardless of whether you actually keep any or not), this is ludicrous.

29

The law defines “take” as JimIslander described above. The key is they include “catch” in the definition. This means that by catching a fish, you are technically “taking” it even if you don’t actually take it home. In order to “catch and release” you must catch the fish first thus qualifying as one of your taken fish for that day regardless of what you do from there. We’ll be fishing a little tomorrow for the first time in several weeks. Hopefully they don’t give me a hard time for handing rods to my kids or baiting them up for them. I suspect they won’t.

30

I don’t have a problem with the new law. I just wanted to make sure that I understood it. If,(by the grace of the fishing God)I manage to catch 5 stripers, I will release them and then go fish for catfish or gars.

Bob Van Gundy
Marine Designs,Inc.
Custom Aluminum Fabrication
803-727-4069

31
quote:
JimIslander

Respectfully, per the law, attempt to take very specifically does not include catch and release, per item 14 as follows:

(14) ‘Take’ means to catch, capture, gather, wound, kill, harvest, or remove, but does not include a catch and immediate release.

What am I missing here?

quote:
If I catch and immediately release 20 fish, I have not taken, or attempted to take, a single fish per the law.
</font id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”> The law does not say “does not include an unintentional catch and immediate release”.
</font id=“quote”></blockquote id=“quote”>

Respectfully, but to be blunt, if you don’t see what you’re missing, I, nor anyone else, will ever make it clear to you. The law was written to prevent summertime HOOKING mortality of striped bass. If you hook and release 20 fish, it is likely that most will not survive release and therefore die. Therein lies the simplicity.

Semantics and debate are a good thing, and help clarify laws as well as many, many other topics. For clarity, perhaps the law should be rewritten to say, “attempt to kill” so we will have an attempted homicide statute for a fish.

32

Oops. I forgot. As previously noted, DNR will have Law Enforcement and Fisheries representatives to discuss this topic with the club Tuesday night. I hope the club affords them the time to better explain their position on the reason for the law as well as the reasoning behind its enforcement.

Please remember, as a club, we supported these changes (except for the June compromise). Now, in my opinion, we should continue to support our original position. Also, as previously noted by DNR, this law is about compromise and can be changed. Ross Self, DNR Chief of Fisheries, has repeatedly said that it is a starting point to prevent the summertime mortality we (MSC as a whole) decried, and the law can be revisited after we give it a chance.

Let me be perfectly clear. This law WAS NOT ORIGINATED BY DNR. The law was rewritten for Lake Murray in response to angler pressure on DNR to help curb summertime hooking mortality. They merely did what was asked of them. If we cannot now accept what we asked them to do for us, then I have no clue where to go from here.

This is my last post under “5 and done”. :smiley: Sorry if I stepped on anyone’s toes or offended in any way. I just want the facts to be straight on why we are where we are today.

33

There are also new laws governing Striped Bass and Hybrids on Clark’s Hill and Hartwell, that went into effect on July 1st.

“A limit of 10 striped bass or hybrid bass or combination on Lakes Hartwell and Thurmond, only three may be over 26 inches”.

Rick

34

What Jim stated cannot be emphasized enough for all of our MSC members… The DNR was responding to OUR COMPLAINTS. We were the ones leading the charge concerning angler hooking mortality and the resulting floating fish on Murray every summer that everyone dreaded seeing. We need to be supportive of the DNR rule, the enforcement of those rules, and work with them to provide clarification if needed. Please don’t let Tuesday’s meeting turn into a heated debate on the usefulness of the law or whether it was needed or not. That’s a debate for another time. This meeting should just be targeted at understanding the law, and understanding how the law will be enforced.

As for each angler catching his own fish, and not allowing others to count the captain’s limit, I agree that this is nothing new at all. To me, a Captain has no responsibility to count each person’s fish. Each licensed fisherman should be able to count to five (unless it is an un-licensed child), in which case the parent or captain must be responsible. But each adult licensed violator should be fined in the case Capt. Buddy described, not the boat captain. That would be a good issue to get comments from DNR on during the clarification.

Jon Boy

35

Excellent post Jon Boy. We all need to remember, we were a driving force for this change in the law. I don’t necessarily agree with having the months of June and September included in the law, but that does not mean that cannot be changed going forward.

As Jon Boy said, we need to focus on understanding the law and how it will be enforced, so we can all avoid “breaking into jail”!

I know the bait guys will be really affected, as will those who keep their boat in the water. I don’t think George Preston will come to the park to sell 3 dozen baits during the week. And, I don’t blame him!

I hope David and Richard continue to be at the dam every morning!

Rick

36

Well, I was going to respond to JimIslander, but I think I’ll let it lie…still believing that an angler is in violation if he attempts to take more than 5 fish.

It will be interesting Tuesday. Bring something to write with.
fishless

37

So is there no size limit on Clarks Hill except 10 a day and only 3 can be over 26"? Is there a minimum size limit.

38

Who has to prove what??

For example: You catch your limit of stripers then pick up & move to another spot & try to catch some catfish, gar or perch!

Just about anything since you have a 2 hr drive each way!

Does DNR have to prove you are fishing for stripers or do you have to prove you are fishing for cats, gar & perch? Looks impossible either way.

Think I will just fish monticello for cats for the 4 months!

Should be an interesting meeting!!!

charles biggers

39
quote:
Originally posted by bomber

So is there no size limit on Clarks Hill except 10 a day and only 3 can be over 26"? Is there a minimum size limit.

No minimum. Just no more than 3 longer than 26".

40
quote:
Originally posted by Fishless1

Well, I was going to respond to JimIslander, but I think I’ll let it lie…still believing that an angler is in violation if he attempts to take more than 5 fish.

Ultimately a waste of time anyway. It makes no difference what I say, only what DNR will do. I wrote a long continuation as well but deleted it. It detracts from the conversation.

Bottom line is what DNR thinks.

Much of the “individual is done fishing for the day” stuff will affect striper fishing guides much more than individuals, as it is difficult or impossible to determine if an angler has changed to fishing for cats (totally legal).

Tidewater 196DC
Yamaha F115

Pungo 120