Please help....ban fishing guides from gifting their catch to their clients..........

Guides in Wisconsin fish nearly every day. They have the ability to catch many, many fish; and they do. This is not a concern in itself. What is a great concern is the legal practice of guides who gift their catch to clients.

For those who don't know about this here is how it works: a client hires a guide to take him fishing. On most bodies of water without special regulations that client can catch 3 walleye in one day, so far so good. The guide can also catch his 3 walleye. Six total walleye in the boat. Here is where it gets ugly. That guide can drive back to landing and "gift" his catch to the client. The client then goes home with six fish, even though his daily limit is 3. To top it off, they can drive to another lake and repeat this same practice for 4 more walleye (2 each) and send the client home with 10 walleye.

As you can see this practice is of concern. It's nearly impossible to enforce, meaning it's very easy for the guide to simply allow his client to catch all the fish, which is not legal. Also because of how often guides fish there is a concern that this is an abuse of the resource. If the guide was simply fishing for himself he would not be able to keep that many fish day after day because he would exceed his possession limit. This practice allows the keeping of many more fish than what was intended by current law.

What I don’t know is how this loop-hole in the law can be closed. Walleye in Wisconsin are on the decline and this is adding to the problem. How can this be stopped?

I agree with hunter_jt.  way worse out there

Those fish gifted to the client would become part of their possession limit.

This is a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.  The number of guys that fish nearly every day (retired, laid off, unemployed...) and keep their limits (or multiple limits) is more prevalent and more problematic.

Bringing up a thread from 6 weeks ago...... who can't get over what?

WOW What a bunch of whiners get over it. 

I still respect yours too, boB!

I'm simply saying I've gone with guides and been offered the fish. I've also guided and had people expect fish.

Until you're out there it's tough to say what is happening and to what extent, let alone be on a website saying "prove it" to somebody.

I guess I could always look at pictures 

FH, we've disagreed on lots of topics,  at least I still respect your opinions 

Sorry, I guess my point is this though...... If you haven't fished with a guide in years or fished a body of water that is guided (other than maybe one) how can you even form an opinion as to whether this is happening or not and to what extent?

It does happen, A LOT, and it isn't investigated because it is legal.

...and my post at 10:21 was directed to the OP, not to anything you had to say Hound.. for clarification

well Hound, that was rude, thank you very much... 

from my first post on this topic, you can see I am not a know it all, just someone with a different opinion...

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1/28/20 @ 2:50 PM

nihsif                  
MEMBER since 6/15/01                                                 

put me firmly in the Greenheads4Ever camp ... while there may be some of this going on, most guides know that protecting the resource is good long term for their business... and, no offense, it's hard to believe the the DNR wouldn't know if this was a huge issue... until real hard facts can be produced, I can't get behind feelings that something is wrong... and I think in saying this issue is widespread, you do a great disservice to the bulk of guides that work hard day in and day out to provide a worthwhile fishing and learning experience, not to mention the cabin rental businesses that support these guides to promote their businesses and a great outdoors experience

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Well ok, the state used to investigate this issue along with other  violations by the guides. Not sure how much of a problem this really is.  From my first hand experience, they investigate and bring in undercover federal wardens from out of the area or state. Book trips and try to lead you towards illegal activity, such as over bagging, or adding / helping others on the trip catch their limit. I would always ask if they cared if I fished most didn’t care. Never added fish to there bag.

Okay, now I'll be a bit rude, deleted the last one.

It's awfully hard for you to argue this point from your recliner boB, if you don't see it happening within the 15 mile radius of your house you live in that's one thing. Please don't come on here as "know-it-all" arguing if it does or does not happen.

It does happen, summer and winter........ period! The extent and effect is more the question.

point was, it's not illegal... pictures are not proof

if there was proof of widespread gifting, I would be interested in having the DNR investigate, and if it was impacting the population, I'm sure the DNR would also be interested, but there's no proof

I will stay out of this until there is proof... pictures are hearsay 

..all there is now is opinion... and trying to shame me or others by saying we  don't care about the resource doesn't do didly for your argument, but I've seen that type of comment several times

Yes, that is exactly what we are talking about, the legal act of gifting away limits by fishing guides (and the detrimental effects it has). Your post from the DNR confirms exactly what the last 70-some posts of this topic have been discussing. I hope that was clear to everyone.

Thanks for posting a bunch of stuff we already knew, boB. Nobody said it was illegal, just unethical. BUT it should be illegal!

Thank you for contacting Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. It is legal for someone to gift their fish to another individual as long as the recipient of the fish is abiding by possession limit restrictions.

I would assume that the gift giver, in this case a guide,  would also have to abide by the daily bag limit and only be able to gift 1 days limit...

For example:  Guide can NOT take a client for a morning trip and gift a daily bag limit to his morning client, then have another client booked for the afternoon trip and keep any more of that species, much less keep another limit and gift it to the 2nd client.

In other words, gifting the morning limit, does not reset the guide's daily bag limit to zero

The answer is, a total daily bag limit is a total daily bag limit. Regardless if you give the fish away or not, you only get one total daily bag limit per day.

Ex: If you were to go out fishing for bluegill and the limit is 25, you get 25 bluegill for the whole day.

If you go out in the morning and catch 20 Bluegill, By gifting John Smith those 20 bluegill and going back out that afternoon, you still must be done fishing after catching the remaining 5 bluegill left over for your daily bag limit of 25 fish.

Maybe this will help you too:

The daily bag limit is the maximum number of fish that an angler may possess or reduce to his/her possession from a specified waterbody in one day.

The total daily bag limit is the maximum number of fish that an angler may reduce to his/her possession in one day from all waters fished for that day.

An angler may combine the catch of a particular species from multiple waters until the total daily bag limit is reached as long as the daily bag limit for each body of water is never exceeded

It IS ILLEGAL to group bag. For example, if an angler catches a limit of 25 panfish and gives them to another person, the person catching the fish has attained their daily bag limit and can no longer keep panfish that day. Any fish received are considered part of the recipient's possession limit, but not part of their daily bag limit unless they are possessed while on the water, bank or shore of the water, ice, or while fishing.

The possession limit is going to be twice the daily bag limit.