Keeping sunfish in NH in an aquarium

The New Hampshire F&G regs seem to require all fresh water fish to be either released alive or killed before leaving any NH stream, lake or pond. Seems to apply to every species except baitfish. Can this br true?

The New Hampshire F&G regs seem to require all fresh water fish to be either released alive or killed before leaving any NH stream, lake or pond. Seems to apply to every species except baitfish. Can this br true?

you have to find the loop. its possible....but see here in MA pumpkinseeds and perch are considered bait fish. ill get back to you with a def answer for NH

Edited by bumpylemon, 28 June 2010 - 05:51 PM.

one troubling thing i did just find is this....


"Importation of fish or their eggs, including bait fish, is prohibited
without a special permit."

Josh you may not like that little law.

i did find this...its all how you interpret it and how, if you are stopped the game warden interupts it....


Only the following species shall be possessed and used as live fish for bait when fishing any freshwaters of the state:

Common name (Scientific name)
Rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax)

Longnose dace (Rhinichthys cataractae)

Blacknose dace (Rhinichthys atratulus)

Northern redbelly dace (Phoxinus eos)

Lake chub (Couesius plumbeus)

Creek chub (Semotilius atromaculatus)

Fallfish (Semotilius corporalis)

Golden shiner (Notemigonus crysoleucas)

Common shiner (Luxilus cornutus)

Emerald shiner (Notropis atherinoides)

Spottail shiner (Notropis hudsonius)

Silvery minnow (Hybognathus nuchalis)

Creek chubsucker (Erimyzon oblongus)

Longnose sucker (Catostomus catostomus)

White sucker (Catostomus commersoni)

Killifish/tomcod (Fundulus sp.)


so it says that only those fish can be POSSESSED and USED for live bait....well it doesnt say what you can POSSESS and NOT use for bait. so sure if you are going to use live bait you have to use the listed above....but what if you arent using it as bait? yeah i am stretching it out but if there is no law that says "you cant have fish in your home" then you have to improvise. if it doesnt say it...its not the law. im sure some people wont agree on here but i bet you alot of members do it that way.

The last time I kept bluegills was around 30 years ago in a 55 Gal tank set up for cichlids. I found them very similar to Oscars, maybe more peaceful. That was a few years ago so my memory may be a bit hazy. I caught them with a fly rod in the spring by dipping the tiny bare hook near the bottom of a small pond. I only kept the smallest specimens around 1.5" long. After a year the six I kept were up to 5" or so on a diet of cichlid pellets and guppies I raised in a very heavily planted 20 Gal tank I used for just for that reason. I found them to be intelligent and very friendly, instantly recognizing me as their feeder and willing to take virtually any feed, live or dry. Contrast that with the cichlids I bred that would attack and kill anything dropped into the tank and then spit it out a few seconds later. I had to run the Diatomaceous earth filter biweekly in the cichlid tank but almost never with the blue gills. I’ve read other hobbyist claim they were very aggressive but the most mine did was to raise spines, splay the gill covers and do mock charges in any standoffs. Maybe because they were raised together? There was also an 8" plecostomus in the tank and they simply ignored each other.

True enough but I still have to harvest them, (unless someone on this list raises them). With my luck I will be accosted by some warden who will interpret the letter of the law and hit me with a $500 fine. I would prefer to do the harvesting myself but do I have a feeler in with a commercial breeder in NY. They haven't gotten back to me yet and I still don't know if they will ship across state lines.

Thanks

Bluegills are a schooling fish, in contrast to greens and pumpkinseeds, so they usually socialize better except for large breeding males.

True enough but I still have to harvest them, (unless someone on this list raises them). With my luck I will be accosted by some warden who will interpret the letter of the law and hit me with a $500 fine. I would prefer to do the harvesting myself but do I have a feeler in with a commercial breeder in NY. They haven't gotten back to me yet and I still don't know if they will ship across state lines.

but still the law states...

"Importation of fish or their eggs, including bait fish, is prohibited
without a special permit."


so whats worse breaking that law or interpreting the other law?


i must say i love redbreast sunfish. mine now its freeze dried krill after about a month in the tank. along with live minnows and earthworms.

Hmm.. not an easy choice. Maybe New Hampshire is not so "live free or die" after all. You have, however, jogged my memory. NH and Maine entered into a pissing contest a few years ago about all things going back and forth across the border, (without paying for the privilege, of course). That included police jurisdiction on the river separating them, fixing the connecting bridges and associated signage, sneaking returnable bottles across the border, buying booze in tax-free NH and not paying Maine tax and the subject here; all manner of contraband bait crossing the border.

The New Hampshire F&G regs seem to require all fresh water fish to be either released alive or killed before leaving any NH stream, lake or pond. Seems to apply to every species except baitfish. Can this br true?

Sadly it is technically true. However i have been carrying live fish I caught home in a bucket since i was a kid, long before i started keeping them, and never had it brought up to me by game officers before.

Then again I only ran across game wardens while rod and reel fishing four or five times total in NH. I never seen one while netting, but I assume use of nets is unusual enough that it will make them curious about it.

You can bet on it. NH allows up to a 48" throw net. I think up to three fish traps, as long as they have you name/address on them and dip nets in designated areas. Only for bait fish and smelt though. I used to gather bait fish by wading up & down small streams with a square net stretched between two bamboo poles. Too bad NH doesn’t designate pan fish as bait then none of this would be necessary.

I know this is an old topic but I thought I might be able to shed some more light on the situation. I work for a pet shop here in New Hampshire and I was considering setting up a native tank as a display so I looked into the laws. I came about the same information as denoferth. Basically no game fish can be taken from the water alive and even then they must be of legal size. Also, no native fish can be imported legally into the state. Hoping that there would perhaps be some special permission for educational displays I put a call into the Fish and Game offices in Concord. Nobody seemed to have a good answer for me so I got passed around a few time but eventually I got an answer from one of the big wigs. He said that the only legal way to obtain and posses native game fish was to buy them from one of the state's fish hatcheries directly. So far I haven't tried to contact any hatcheries to see if they would sell to the general public. However, knowing that there is at least a legal method to obtain game fish you shouldn't have to worry about possessing them no matter how you came about them. Just don't get caught taking any away from a body of water or you'll be in trouble.

However, knowing that there is at least a legal method to obtain game fish you shouldn't have to worry about possessing them no matter how you came about them. Just don't get caught taking any away from a body of water or you'll be in trouble.

I fished all my life, lugging home fish in buckets for that time. Though not technically legal i never met a Game Warden who cared. As long as I had legal sizes and limits they never complained.

As for no natives being sold here, how come they haven't raided every petco and petsmart in the state for selling fatheads? I also bought a jade sleeper at a local pet store and seen mosquito fish and gar in others. Pet Store people panic if you ask if you can buy a sunfish, but otherwise Fish and Game never seemed to care on this either. NH pet stores sell some native species and they just don't seem to care.

I know it's not right to break the law over this, but... well... I have yet to meet an officer who cared one way or the other on this issue.

As for no natives being sold here, how come they haven't raided every petco and petsmart in the state for selling fatheads? I also bought a jade sleeper at a local pet store and seen mosquito fish and gar in others. Pet Store people panic if you ask if you can buy a sunfish, but otherwise Fish and Game never seemed to care on this either. NH pet stores sell some native species and they just don't seem to care.

I know it's not right to break the law over this, but... well... I have yet to meet an officer who cared one way or the other on this issue.

When I speak of native fish here I'm specifically refering to fish indigenous to New Hampshire. You are allowed to import native US fish which are not indigenous to NH so that is why you'll see gars and mosquito fish here.

And while I have taken fish home in a bucket before as well, I would certainly not condone it. Not because I think its wrong but because the power that Fish and Game has is pretty extensive and the fines and penalties can be severe, especially if you don't have a fishing license. But, like I said in my previous post I had to go through several people before I found a person who could even answer my questions so my guess is that most game wardens don't have a clue what the laws are one way of the other in regard to keeping wild fish.

Sigh! It's only getting worse. It now costs you $16 to fish in the ocean from New Hampshire. Seems it’s not a license cost but an administrative fee so the government can keep track of usage. Does that make any sense at all?

Write your Congressmen about this, and how dumb it is that you can buy nonnative fish in a pet store that can live in NH but you can't collect natives.

I'm spoiled I guess because in Indiana you are allowed to keep fish for the aquarium as long as they are leagle (limit, size, not threatoned or endangered) and you can import fish for aquarium use as long as they are not of a restricted species. You just can't release anything into the wild, as it should be.