FLW Detroit restrictions

This will change a few things

http://walleyetour.flwoutdoors.com/article.cfm?id=145485

The same federal rules that are handicapping the Detroit river event apply to MN and WI as well (you may not bring a live fish from one state to another). Just as this may cause the detroit river event to be limited to the MI waters of that river, it is possible that the upcoming FLW tournaments on Pool 4 may have to deal with similar restrictions. Could it be that the league will have to stay on the WI side and the tour on the MN side (since that is where those two events are weighing) of the pool? What an enforcement nightmare.

Hopefully an amendment to the federal rule will be passed (to allow interstate transport of fish if they are released back into the same body of water) and these restrictions will be lifted.

Does this mean we’ll only need Michigan Lic. unless they make an Amendment?

There is one differance with Minnesota and Wisconsin and that is the states do not split the river down the middle, atleast I don’t think so. The waters, I believe, are combined from shoreline to shoreline. The Detroit R. like the Rainy River on the Canadian border, has an imaginary line running down the middle of the river and you better have canadian minnows if you are fishing across that line along with your canadian license.

Again I am not positive about this but I think that is how it works.

Boy, I hope that’s the way these rules are going to be interpreted on Pool 4.

I will say this….during my conversations with the WI DNR last fall about state record sauger coming from Pool 4, the DNR told me that any potential record fish would be registered in the state whose waters the fish was caught from. In other words, WI recognizes a boundary within the pool that separates MN waters from WI waters.

Not only that, Pool 3 is out since the lock is on the MN side. Unless tourneys leave from MN.

Its interesting that Wis. would say that. In MN there are many record fish that came from the Mississippi and if you were licensed in MN then the record stood for MN and didn’t matter what side of the river it was caught.

Maybe it will depend on which state you launch from and which state the tour. permit came from.

In my conversations with the WI DNR, it appeared to me that they recognize a border line on the pools of the Mississippi. My interpratation from these conversations was that MN does as well. I could be wrong, but that is my understanding. My dealings with the DNR and border questions involved number of legal lines allowed per angler, state of residence, state holding a fishing license from, etc. Not sure if or how that affects the ruling regarding tournaments and transporting fish across state borders. If this affects those of us who fish pool 4, it could make things interesting.