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Great Video!
On the day this show was filmed the crew on the ice talked with the local CO by cell phone on three separate occasions to make sure all laws were being followed. If you look at 2013 regs on page 23, this show was filmed on 12/31/13, there’s absolutely no mention of party fishing being an issue. Turn the calendar to 2014 and look in the 2014 rule book and on page 23 that you cited there’s clearly been an addition covering it.
Our discussions with the CO only addressed what was legal when we were fishing and not what was going to be changed in the coming year.
The only reason I brought it up was so that someone else didn’t get the wrong info. Obviously if a CO said it was ok, then I would take their word for it too.
My copy of the 2013 handbook on page 22 states:
Limits, Daily
The number of fish that may be taken from midnight
to midnight. A person may possess no more than one day’s limit of fish while on the water or ice or actively engaged in fishing. With the exception of Lake Oahe, when fishing multiple waters in a day,cumulative harvest of a species may not exceed the standard statewide daily limit.
NOTE:
Fish caught by groups of anglers are
typically kept together in live wells or on the
same stringer and as a result, some anglers pursue
a combined daily limit for their group. State law
provides that anglers must abide by the daily
limits established by the Game, Fish and Parks
Commission and the Department of Game, Fish
and Parks cannot authorize an angler to exceed his/
her daily limit in the course of obtaining a combined
limit for a group of anglers. The Department does
not require members of angling parties to keep their
individual limits separated from other members
of an angling party and encourages anglers to
practice reasonable restraint in the pursuit of the
daily limits for members of a group.
After a bunch of additional reading I think we were pointed in the right direction by the CO.
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…encourages anglers to practice reasonable restraint in the pursuit of the daily limits for members of a group.
I read it as you can “party fish” but they ask you to use restraint when doing so. I have no idea what determines “reasonable.” [SIGH]
And then there’s this…
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the Department of Game, Fish and Parks cannot authorize an angler to exceed his/her daily limit in the course of obtaining a combined limit for a group of anglers.
I read this to mean an angler can fish as part of a group but legal limits for all parties stay the same. Meaning just because a party of two, for example, fished together with two licenses and could legally keep two limits if one angler caught them all and contributed all fish to the group catch that one angler couldn’t take them all home.
One thing I do know, I didn’t contribute to Will’s catch. Will didn’t contribute to mine. I caught my 4. He caught his 3. So we didn’t party fish according to SD’s 2013 or 2014 rules. We never kept another fish after leaving spot #1.
When talking with the CO we asked how we needed to go about things to fish area #1 and move to area #2 and still be legal to fish both locations. We were told to leave an open fish in our limits and all was good. I definitely didn’t want to put out any incorrect info which is why we bombarded the CO with a series of calls to try and make sure we had a clear understanding of how the regs in the area worked.
