Quote:
Originally Posted by DZ
Toby - did they approve the "if you fillet a bass on the water you must keep the rack" reg? I brought this up at the RI hearing. Told them it might work for boat fishing but would be a PIA for surfcasters, most who don't carry coolers with them on casting sessions. If surfcasters need to carry their gear, fillets, and a bloody rack while on a casting session, then bring the rack back home it will be a mess. The optics of seeing surfcasters carrying racks with them is weird to say the least.
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As noted by Paul, this did pass so racks must be retained. Off the top of my head I am not sure exactly how long the rack must me retained, and when I was keeping the odd striped something like this would never have been an issue for me as I never filleted at the beach anyway. I would drag it around all night, throw it in a cooler in my truck, and deal with it the next day (which is a major reason why I stopped harvesting.)
There has been a lot of confusion on this rule. At the CT public hearing I attended, the for-hires thought it meant they had to actually fillet at the dock which led to concerns about patrons "hanging around drinking and causing a scene" (their words, not mine) as well as issues of disposing of multiple racks where marinas might have rules against such practices. This concern was heard but not addressed by the passing of the rule.
It was clarified that the requirement to do the physical filleting while at the dock was not accurate and that it only meant that if you had a filleted fish while still in the act of fishing or on a trip (at sea), then the rack had to be retained. It also did not mean the patrons of a for-hire had to keep the rack for their ride home. So with a surfcaster I would assume (again, not 100% certain) that they could carry the whole bass while still fishing as so many do, then only keep the rack for as long as they were at the water assuming they filleted while on site. I guess this would mean that if you catch a striper at 1 spot, and intend to fish a 2nd spot, if you fillet at spot 1 then you'd need to keep the rack as you travel to spot 2 as you're still in the act of fishing. If you wait until the night is done to fillet then by default you're retaining the rack.