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Hit the water this afternoon around 4:00-4:30 CDT. We started where we left off this morning, fishing 22-29 FOW, marking lots of bait in 26-27 FOW. Made a few passes out to 50 FOW, and picked up a couple fish. Ended up with seven coho and one small king. Our best bait was a pink and purple hot n' tot, but a red thin fish, dodger and fly, a spoon and jointed rapalas in shad and fire tiger also took fish. Beautiful evening on the big lake, and a really great day overall.

2 guys - I assume the same buddy you limited out with this morning since you said "we started out where we left off"- caught 18 salmon in one day. That's only 8 over the legal daily bag limit . If you plan on doing this you probably shouldn't advertise it. Not only fisherman read these posts

It wasn't with the same buddy, and there were three of us (myself, my brother, and my nephew [his first trip on the big lake]) in the afternoon/evening. I gave to my mother my five fish from the morning , so I was and am within constraints of the law. Making assumptions isn't always the best way to go...

go4bigfish wrote:

2 guys - I assume the same buddy you limited out with this morning since you said "we started out where we left off"- caught 18 salmon in one day. That's only 8 over the legal daily bag limit . If you plan on doing this you probably shouldn't advertise it. Not only fisherman read these posts

theROO wrote:

It wasn't with the same buddy, and there were three of us (myself, my brother, and my nephew [his first trip on the big lake]) in the afternoon/evening. I gave to my mother my five fish from the morning , so I was and am within constraints of the law. Making assumptions isn't always the best way to go.


It is illegal to take more than the daily bag limit of a wild fish in a calendar day. 
Taken from the INDNR website ^
 You can only catch and keep 5 salmon per calendar day.  Giving the fish away doesn't change anything. Unless your mother was on the boat and she has a fishing license.

 

The following is a detailed description of my fishing day on 5/10.  I didn't originally include the detailed nuances of my trips on Tuesday because I really didn't think it would be necessary, as I didn't expect I was going to be on trial for putting up a couple of fishing reports.  I was, obviously, wrong about that, as I not only received the push-back that I did on this forum thread, but also received a call from a Detective in the Investigations Bureau of the DNR yesterday (It should be noted that, at the conclusion of this conversation, the Detective assured me the matter was closed, as it was apparent to him that no further action was necessary beyond the aforementioned conversation).  It astounds me that a person's go-to reaction when reading what I wrote is to contact the DNR and blatantly accuse me of being outside the regulations of the law.  So, without further ado, here is the full, detailed account of my fishing day (with photos attached for reference).

Fished in the AM with a friend/co-worker.  We caught 10 coho (five each, per the law).  At the conclusion of our AM trip, I returned home to drop off my friend.  After dropping my boat at home, and cleaning my fish, I stopped over at my Mom's house and gave her my catch so she could enjoy some fresh fish for dinner.  I spoke to my brother while en route to my home, and he mentioned that we should grab my nephew (who had never fished out there before) and go back out for the afternoon bite.  You see, I fish out of a 17' Bass Tracker, so my opportunities to fish are slim, requiring the perfect wind and weather in order to even get out.  This was a perfect weather day, AND the fish were biting, so it seemed like a great time to take out someone new to the Big Lake.  After my nephew got out of school at 3pm EDT, and my brother got out of work, we returned to MC and went back to the same place I had fished in the morning (thus the PM report stating "we started out where we left off this morning"; "we" being the boat, in general).  I've been fishing Lake Michigan my entire life (third generation fisherman on Lake Michigan), and I am well aware of the laws that govern and protect our beloved fishery.  For this reason, I went along on this trip to drive the boat, which allowed my brother and greenhorn nephew to do all the fishing.  As stated in the PM report, they caught eight fish (seven coho and one small king) - NONE of which were caught by me, and all well within the regulations of a two-man daily limit.

I've attached photos for clarity, so that everyone is aware that there were different people in the boat for both trips.  Additionally, these photos (all taken by me) show that the photos were taken from the vantage point of the driver's seat, where I was planted for the entirety of the afternoon trip.

I don't suppose I'll post anymore fishing reports on here.  In my wildest dreams, I never expected this kind of result in trying to share information with the fishing community.  Forgive me for not including mundane details in my reports...I just didn't think it was necessary and I try to stick to the pertinent information related to fishing.  In the future, it might behoove anyone wanting to contact the DNR in a knee-jerk reaction to reading a post to actually do the gentlemanly thing and contact the person-in-question directly to get the whole story.  

Tight lines...good luck out there.

(This identical message was posted in the AM report for consistency)

OMG! I cant believe this. I understood what you said and meant! I'm so sorry you had to go through this.

Please reconsider you position and continue to post your successes so we can all learn.

As a matter of fact, your current post was just that, a learning session.

Keep positive! This will pass my friend.

God Bless

Yes, please keep posting reports! 

FYI the DNR law enforcement guys frequently bust people by monitoring social media like facebook/instagram, and hunting and fishing forums and doing exactly what you have described - they are just doing their jobs. While you were in the right I hope you can understand them checking to make sure you're on the up and up

Sorry you experienced that. I joined this forum a couple years ago and I promise you the members here are very friendly and welcoming. I think you just got unlucky because some zealot saw your post and jumped to conclusions. I know it’s easier said than done, but I wouldn’t worry about it. You didn’t do anything wrong. Hope to read your posts in the future on this forum. 

Sorry you had to experience this.  There are alot of folks that do shady things out there and that makes many anglers more protective of their fishery.  Often times this causes people to jump to conclusions.  Glad you had a good day fishing and all ended up well in the end.  Thanks for the reports.

MC_angler wrote:

Yes, please keep posting reports! 

FYI the DNR law enforcement guys frequently bust people by monitoring social media like facebook/instagram, and hunting and fishing forums and doing exactly what you have described - they are just doing their jobs. While you were in the right I hope you can understand them checking to make sure you're on the up and up

 

I do, indeed, appreciate the DNR doing their job.  I had/have no beef whatsoever with the DNR.