Kill those Tigers

The way I read the regs there is no Statewide size restriction for Tiger Trout, although there is one for Tiger Muskie. I did not check the specific regs for Clear Ck Res, where there could be a size restriction on Tiger Trout. I empathize with your grief about the situation, but it is important to be specific about these issues.

The fish pictured are tiger muskie.

That is a Tiger Musky, not a Tiger trout. If I'm not mistaken, there is, or used to be, a sign that states that a Tiger musky must be at least 36" in order to keep it, and the limit is one fish.

To not know the regulations for the water one is fishing should be punishable by losing the opportunity to fish any where in the state for life.

Yes, I'm a hard a$$ when it comes to following the regs.

Being able to correctly identify the species you catch is equally as important as knowing the regulations for keeper size….

I do feel we need a great increase in signage with regs and pictures of the fish listed in the regs.

That was my mistake it is should read “Tiger Muskie” it was a long day on the water, suffering from a cooked brain and a fishing rod short.

Definitely a tiger muskie. Too bad.

AJBert: Come on, man, isn't that pretty severe? Wouldn't a $10,000 fine and 2 years of community service be good enough punishment? Need to be reasonable here in teaching folks to take the time to educate themselves on the rules. :-?

That sucks
Thats why alot of our waters are loosing quality.
People don't care. Rules don't apply to them.
That is the same as poaching in my book.
We don't need those people here.

Plenty of people don't know all the rules - and don't bother to check. If any of you see anything illegal taking place, and you don't feel comfortable addressing it yourself, I stuck the OGT phone # on the right side of the site just to make it easy to find. It should show on almost any page. Give them a call and let them know what you saw. From my experience, state enforcement is very thinned out. If we make a little effort to report issues maybe that'll help in a tiny way.
Matt

Matt,

I agree with what you said.

However,
How many people fishing any given small metropolitan lake are breaking one or more fishing regulations on any given day?
How many on a large body of water such as Chatfield or Cherry Creek or Boyd or Granby?
We are told that law-breakers are a serious problem both in their numbers and significance of their crimes (i.e. poaching large numbers of under-sized fish).
We are told that Rangers are stretched thin and can’t cover all the bodies of water.
We are told that the money isn’t there to pay for more Rangers.
That is true but ONLY because the fines for breaking the law aren’t set high enough.
The simple way to address the problem is to raise the fines for lawbreakers.
If there ARE that many people breaking the law, then fines ALONE would cover the cost of the enforcement personnel.
Raise the fines up so that enforcement personnel are numerous enough to address the problem.
Once the numbers of law breakers drops off precipitously, (and it will when word gets out) you can lay off the Rangers you hired to address the problem.
JMHO

Yeah!

El jefe:
In short, I think your point is to raise fines. Sounds good to me! All for it! Check into CPW commission meetings to make an effort to change that. Would be worthy. [log in for link] My point is… regardless of whether punishment is increased and even thereafter, call in illegal activity, the phone # is to the right.
Thanks,
Matt

I absolutely agree with higher fines. Here is the problem. Have you ever heard the saying you can't squeeze blood from a turnip? Most of these lawbreakers are your turnips imo. You raised the fines if a judge actually imposes those higher fines the turnip can't afford to pay them. If they can't afford to pay them it ultimately gets turned into either a civil judgement or a warrant. In the event of a warrant they get arrested and go sit in jail to the tune of 100 plus dollars a day to the taxpayers. At the end of the day it's not worth it for the taxpayers to pay for them to sit in jail because they caught an extra fish or 10. I definitely agree with the higher fines but at the end of the day it cost the taxpayers not to turnip. The hundred plus dollars a day you could buy a lot of fish to stock.
I also believe more signage is important. There's probably a lot of new people fishing around here these days that necessarily are not turnips but don't understand what they're fishing for. Happens hunting every year people shoot moose thinking that there elk. I think more education on specie identification is the only way to fix that.

Colorado Parks & Wildlife publish a yearly magazine on fishing license and regs. I carry one with my fishing gear and in my truck. If I am fishing a new area I reference the book for regs. The book is free and needs to be issued with a fish license.

The original post didn't reference if the ranger fined the individual or the previous individuals . Did They or didn't they

Inspector….

I saw the same thing there a month ago, except the tiger muskie lived. We couldn't figure out why the inspector was running down the boat ramp to fill up a bucket and then back up to the guy's boat. He then came back down to release the fish. The boater thought it was a northern pike and that he could keep it. Maybe a big bright sign posted right on the boat dock would actually get read by the boat fishermen before they launch? No fines were administered, I don't think the boat inspectors have that ability. No telling how many are taken by the shore fishermen.