Am I breaking the law?

[nel]

I fish chemong/buckhorn...sometimes, I take the boat from chemong to buckhorn (the lakes are attached). If I got a live fish in the livewell/bucket, can the COs bust me for transporting fish from one body of water to another?

 

I've done it so many times and I just realized that I could be in deep doo doo...

[express168]

I am not positive but I believe that because you can go lake to lake without removing the boat from the water and transporting over land that you are fine. But like I said i am not a C/O .

[taper]

I think express168 is correct you have not left the body of water. I don't think you are considered transporting until the boat is on the trailer. Any thing you can cross in your boat the fish can cross naturally.

[nel]

whew...I thought I was toast...thanks for clearing that up for me.

 

when does one body of water end, and another begin? A lot of the kawartha lakes are linked via the canal system...no way they're all one body of water...are they?

[fishboy]

Seeing as "we" made the canals and hence have already given the fish a way to get from lake to lake, I can't see how you could get dinged for transporting through any lakes that you can access without having to put your boat on the trailer.

[sonny]

If your boat can navigate it, then so could the fish,,no problem there!

[camillj]

I think the 'spirit' of the law is to prevent people from doing things that cant happen naturally ... in the 'letter' of the law you cant transport fish from one body of water to another period ... in the case you described I would say it would be VERY hard to prove that you did unless someone was watching you catch it and unless you released the fish into the second body of water...which wouldnt make a lot of sense to me anyways.

 

So I wouldnt get too worried about it . I have to believe there are REAL crooks out there much more worthy of our limited MNR dollars

Edited April 10, 2007 by camillj