???? about culling

I’ve never been someone to cull, plus having grown up in a no cull state, I’m not sure what the cull law means. I’ve read on the DNR website the following statement “It is illegal to cull fish that have been reduced to possession.”

What exactly does this mean? Does it mean you can not cull once you have your limit in the live well?? I’ve been trying to find other verbage in the handbook pertaining to the cull laws in MN, but have not had any success.

Here is why I’m asking, I’m in a tourney this weekend on an inland body of water. I’m assuming(praying) we have the opputunity to cull throughout the day, but I want to make sure I’m doing everything by the book. Obviously I’ll ask the tourney director the same question, but I want to hear how others interpret this law.

Thanks!!

Once you have your legal limit in your possesion, you cannot take other fish to improve what you already have. Say you have 5 small legal size bass in your livewell and you catch a 4lb’er. You cannot take one of the small fish out and keep that 4lb’er. If you watch these tourneys they show on tv, those guys have to make the decision at the side of the boat on whether or not to keep the fish. Sometimes it’s a good decision, and sometimes it’s a bad one. I hope that answered your question.

I interpert it as, once you put the fish in the livewell, it counts as in your possession toward the legal limit you are allowed and cannot be deposited back in the water. So, if you are fishing in a tournement, you’re going to have to think twice about keeping those 15 – 15 1/2 inchers.

LK

Basically once a fish is in the livewell, you can not upgrade it then??

Here is how I thought MN laws “read”: My legal limit is 6 walleyes in my possesion. I have 5 fish in the live well, then I catch a 24″ fish and want to release a 17″ fish to better my weight. I have completed my possesion limit technically, so I think I should be done.

However, in a tourney, my partner and I have a combined possession limit of 12 fish legally. We may only be able to weigh 6, so technically we have not completed the possession limit.

Does this make sense?? I know I’m thoroughly confused now!!!

It makes sense what you are saying but most tournament do not allow limits for both anglers. This is established when the permit for the tournament is applied for. Some tournaments I fish in Minnesota have a 6 fish limit, Once you have 6 in the boat your done. No culling or upgrading. If the tournament allows lets say 8 fish in possession and weigh 6. You can upgrade but you are not culling because you are still within the legal limit of the state.

Even though the law is never enforced, the Wisconsin DNR has decided it can use the no cull law as a avenue to curtail tournament fishing. There is no scientific evidence anywhere that says it harms a bass to be culled out of a working airated livewell. However there is evidence that the mortality rate as it pertains to walleyes being culled in warm water is very high. Right now the Wisconsin Bass Federation is working for an exemption for the no cull law at permitted bass tourneys. Personally I have a problem with culling fish. Everyone is doing it. And it isn’t fair that a guy should lose a tournament because they are following the rules. In my oppinion, I wish the culling law would go away. It’s nothing more than a old archaic unused law anyway, especially for bass. But at this time the Wisconsin DNR could care less about tournament fisherman, and they are very opposed to changing this rule. So the fight goes on.

Bait Caster, I think the culling rule does have a purpose. Alot of people who keep fish would be more inclined to take a fish off the stringer and replace it with a bigger fish if the rule wasn’t in effect. I think it also works well for ice fishing, no sliding a frozen fish down a hole to make way for a bigger fish.

Considering that all the fish are going to be released anyway I don’t know why the DNR couldn’t give an exemption to permitted bass tournaments.

“You can upgrade but you are not culling because you are still
within the legal limit of the state.”

I don’t think that’s correct. Once it hits the livewell, it’s yours forever! Unless you decide to release it, but then it can’t be replaced. Upgrading is the same as culling whether you have a limit or only two fish.

Blue Fleck is correct regarding the MN “cull” rule. You may “sort/cull” until you ‘ve reached the daily possession limit. I personally feel if you do not immediately release a fish you should keep it.

In the special fishing edition in the May 4, 2003 Star Tribune Ron Payer, current DNR fisheries division director was asked this exact question his reply: “Right now you can legally cull your fish in Minnesota, meaning keep some in your livewell until you catch a bigger one, then release one of the smaller ones. You can do that now until you’ve reached your limit, then you have to stop, because after that point, to allow culling, an angler would have to have at least one extra fish in his possession at least for the time it took to release a fish that was caught earlier. My interpretation, you are in a walleye tourney with a 5 fish tourney limit. State limit is 6 walleyes. You could keep up to 6 and weigh your largest 5. With 2 guys you could legally keep 12, weigh your largest 5. Ron says they’ll probably visit the issue later this year as it is confusing when tourneys say no culling.

Drizz,
My statement may have been confusing. By upgrading, what I meant is that you weigh your biggest fish. Say the tournament limit is 6 fish but their permit allows each tournament boat 8 fish in the livewell. At the end of the day you way your best 6. The other 2 are still in your possession to be released by tournament officals.

In Wisconsin it is illegal to sort fish, no matter if you have your legal limit or not. For example once you have reduced a fish to your livewell you can not legally replace that fish with a bigger fish. So it does not matter how many fish you have in your livewell, by the wat the law reads youcan not sort fish!! I can understand the original premise of this law. But I think with the technology of todays livewell systems the law should be changed. Maybe it should be that you can not release a dead fish, or one that has not been in a working livewell. This culling law is costing Wisconsin millions of dollars in lost revenue from professional bass tournaments. B.A.S.S. and the FLW circuits will never come to Wisconsin with this culling law in place. Anyone who reads this message board who is in the tourism industry should take note and realize that your own DNR is screwing you. I would urge you to call your legislators and raise hell!! It isn’t fair that a state agency paid for by our hard earned tax dollars should be taking money away from us based on out of date bogus information. Our DNR does a wonderful job from a boilogical stand point of managing our fisheries in Wisconsin. But they are as political as the Democrats and Republicans on some issues. And unfourtunelatly I beleive they are totally against tournament fishing in Wisconsin. Well I have bad news for the DNR… If they simply will not reason with practical common sense, then maybe we should circumvent their rule making process and work strictly through our elected legislature. I can tell you that if they will not listen to us, we wll go to the next level in Wisconsin. So if there are any DNR officials that would like to respond to this message, please please do.

Many anglers still use stringers. In fact on the opener here on Bay de at least 60% of the boats(there were well over 200 boats) were using coolers or stringers in 14-16′ simple open boats with small 8-15 hp outboards.
A lot of people do not have the bigger well equipped boats that some of us have with aerated live wells. So I think bearing the whole picture in mind it is understandable to have a restriction on put/taking after the limit is acheived. In my guiding business, once you put a limit in the live well everthing else is CPR unless another legal fish is badly injured. Then we will keep it on my alotted limit.

Don, O.K. I’m with you now. Since I don’t see anything in the regs on inland waters, I’ll stand corrected on that and say Schmidtty is right there. But on the boundary waters (MN-WI, & MN-SD) where the regs read, “It is illegal to cull fish that have been reduced to possession.”, that once a fish hits the livewell, it’s yours and you are not allowed to cull.

Well, unfortunately we didn’t have to worry about the culling rule. We had tough pre-fishing and an even tougher tourney. Only five teams caught fish yesterday, and the team that won only had 4 fish, so culling never came into play. I appreciate everyone’s input.

It has nothing to do with tournament fishing as the Wisconsin culling law has been on the books for decades. Why should Wisconsin change its laws for a group that wants to commercialize competitive fishing for profit? I never could figure out why tournament officials allow “everybody out there” to break not only a tournament rule but a state law as well. Tournament organizers should be able to figure out how to conduct a tournament within the framework of the state laws, not just ignore them. It has more to do with just the harm to the resource. There are a lot of activities on public waters that are regulated by states which consider more than just the user’s opinion as to weather they harm the resource. What is wrong with the angler making the decision when the fish is boated weather to keep the fish or not? Predicting the total weight to win early on could add an interesting twist to the tournament. What about adding ounces for early return to the weigh in or documenting every fish boated and immediately released and award a value for so many fish in each size category? The options are endless. Every tournament does not have to be 5 biggest fish at 3PM.

curious,
I realize that the culling rule is a state law, but how do you enforce this rule? Are you going to put a tournament official in every boat?

I believe this is an integrity issue that most tourney anglers adhere to. I view it as a lot of other things in life, I know I did the right thing and I can’t control what other individuals do. I know I wouldn’t want the repuation of a cheater either. Think about the boy who allegedly trimmed tails on Mille Lacs last year, who wants them in a tournament now???