11 replies to this topic

[Betta132]

I'm building a small collection of fish specimens for research purposes. I know it's rare to find an intact dead fish in a river, but I've had it happen a couple of times. Anyone know anything about the legality of picking up a dead fish and taking it home? Same as applied to live fish of the same species? I'm in Central Texas, if it makes any difference.

[gzeiger]

Fishing regulations generally don't address it, so it's legal wherever it would be legal to take other objects. Park regulations often prohibit the taking of anything at all except as specifically permitted by hunting and fishing regulations, so some sites may be off-limits. There's also the problem of not being able to prove it was dead when you found it, so a corpse that would not be in compliance with regulations if taken live presents its own problem.

 

An interesting project for sure.

[Michael Wolfe]

Agree with the reply. If it were a game fish. Then you should have hook and line with you since that is the only legal way to take a game fish in most cases.

[Betta132]

What if I didn't have any equipment at all? I doubt somebody would believe I managed to catch something like a sunfish with my bare hands.

[Matt DeLaVega]

Just carry something like this in your pocket. Make it small and simple.

https://www.google.c...iw=1047&bih=504

[Betta132]

Seems easily doable, I'll put something like that together for legal reasons.

I mostly have saltwater specimens from a pet store, as they give me anything that doesn't survive the shipping if I happen to be there. Unfortunately, the color doesn't stay terribly well, as I'm using isopropyl alcohol to preserve them. I had to choose between keeping the color (drying) and keeping the shape, and I chose to keep the less variable thing, the body shape. Fish body shape always matches, fish color can change depending on the fish.

[Matt DeLaVega]

Everclear sold at liqour stores may be better than isopropyl I think. Might want to get a small syringe to inject it into the body cavitiy if you do not already have one. I don't know the best process myself, but quite a few people here regularly preserve fish in either ethanol to preserve DNA, or formalin for collections. Good luck.

[Betta132]

Isopropyl was just the most readily available thing when I started, I'll have to look into options. I'd love to keep the color on these as much as possible. Though, alcohol does have the advantage of not being toxic.

I don't yet have a syringe, my largest self-collected fish is a 3 1/2" hawkfish from my LFS.

[Chasmodes]

Just don't forget and leave one in the trunk of you car in the summer.  

[Matt DeLaVega]

Just don't forget and leave one in the trunk of you car in the summer.  

That is called an angler air freshener.

[Matt DeLaVega]

Oh or that tub of nightcrawlers that you left in your tackle box a week or two ago. Probably why it seems like most bait fishermen seem obliged to leave the tub on the bank. They don't want to risk forgetting it in their box.

[Chasmodes]

I never understand why some of those slobs also leave their beer empties along the bank...it was heavier lugging all that in and much lighter to take out.  I digress.

 

But yeah, worms in the trunk...done that before..yuk.  My solution wasn't to litter, but to use lures from than point on.

 

Here's a good one...I like to ice fish, and one of my favorite baits to tip my ice jigs with are maggots (referred to as spikes in the ice fishing world).  I'd keep them in the refrigerator to prevent them from turning to flies, and they last a long time.  One April day, we headed out to go crappie fishing and I brought my container of spikes with me to use the rest up.  I wasn't driving, and was in the passenger seat, and decided to check what kind of shape my spikes were in, and opened up the container...flies flew out like bats out of a cave, probably 50 of them or more, all throughout the car.  It freaked me out, and my buddy was driving nearly wrecked, not from being freaked out, but rather by him not being able to stop laughing!