2015 fishing regulations

[35wailin]

https://www.ontario.ca/travel-and-re...ations-summary

[greatwhite]

Thanks for posting just downloaded them now.

[Blakev]

Agreed, thanks for posting!

[ollie]

Thanks !

[blasted_saber]

On to the smartphone, thanks for the link

[tweedwolfscream]

Thanks 35wailin! This finally confirms for me the new cisco season on Simcoe that I've heard say about but not from an official source. Glad to see it.

Other than that, the front cover has bad news for hungry brookie lovers in 17 (reduced limits) and good news for Lake Erie perchers who like to catch their limit two days in a row, I guess? (possession limit now twice the daily limit)

I did a quick scan for changes to the regs that are NOT summarized in the bullets on the front cover. Here's what I got, with no claims to being complete:

- New wording in the general regs laying down the law about releasing illegal (OOS, slot protected, over your limit) fish, though it still doesn't spell out the photograph question
- Zone 6 - no smelt as bait
- Zone 4 - in the lakes that are C&R only for lake trout, you can now only use artificial lures and single barbless hooks; however, this rule only applies when fishing for lake trout specifically, unlike the similar rules on C&R trout rivers in the south
- Mostly Zone 15, but also elsewhere - a few individual lakes now have a live baitfish ban
- Zone 15 - a couple of lakes have a new minimum size for brook trout (28 cm, which I think is smaller than all previous brookie minimums)
- Manitoulin Island - perch daily limit on Conservation license reduced to 12; possession C limit remains 25; Sport limits remain unchanged
- Lake Nipissing - new bass and walleye regs, but we already knew that
- St. Clair and Detroit Rivers - two lines no longer permitted
- A few new sanctuaries throughout the province

Note that although the full version of the regs is updated at the link 35wailin provided, as of right now the PDFs of the sections for each zone that you can find on the MNR website are still the 2014 version. I like to put those FMZ PDFs on my smartphone so hopefully they update soon.

[35wailin]

I have the regs backed up on my laptop and USB stick as well as my iPod touch, phone and iPad mini. No reason for not knowing the rules or at least having the data at hand.

[smitty55]

- New wording in the general regs laying down the law about releasing illegal (OOS, slot protected, over your limit) fish, though it still doesn't spell out the photograph question.

This may help some. A nephew of a good friend of mine recently got his outfitters license and had posted a picture of a nice Walleye caught that was well over the slot. I sent him a note cautioning him about posting pictures of non legal fish saying that technically there was a chance he could get in trouble for not immediately releasing the fish. Here is his response.

"Thank you for your concern, I had this discussion with my local Mnr officer Shawn Kennedy and a few others last winter when the stayed at my family's resort last winter, because I once had the same interpretation. I am allowed to take a picture of a non keeper fish and take the appropriate measurements in order to have a graphite replica done. All fish we catch spend limited time of out of the water and I make sure all my guests are aware of proper fish handling techniques."

So take that as it is, but it would still be nice to see it written down clearly in the regs.

Cheers

[tweedwolfscream]

This may help some. A nephew of a good friend of mine recently got his outfitters license and had posted a picture of a nice Walleye caught that was well over the slot. I sent him a note cautioning him about posting pictures of non legal fish saying that technically there was a chance he could get in trouble for not immediately releasing the fish. Here is his response.

"Thank you for your concern, I had this discussion with my local Mnr officer Shawn Kennedy and a few others last winter when the stayed at my family's resort last winter, because I once had the same interpretation. I am allowed to take a picture of a non keeper fish and take the appropriate measurements in order to have a graphite replica done. All fish we catch spend limited time of out of the water and I make sure all my guests are aware of proper fish handling techniques."

So take that as it is, but it would still be nice to see it written down clearly in the regs.

Cheers

I guess thinking about it I don't find the new paragraph in the regs that helpful. What confuses me about it is it lumps in OOS fish together with fish caught past your limit and prohibited sizes.

As far as I'm concerned and understand the regs, if a fish is in season you can target it as much as you want, and measure or pose for a picture with all you catch, so long as you only keep a number within your limit and only allowed sizes, and carefully release the rest within a few seconds of being landed. For example if you were fishing for muskie or atlantics on a conservation license, sturgeon fishing up north where there's a season, or fly fishing for trout on a C&R only river, the limit would be 0 but you can still handle your catch before releasing it.

Whereas OOS fish should not even be targeted, because the idea of closed seasons is to protect the fish from disturbance, not just harvest. So I could understand if the MNR sets a higher bar for "immediate release" in the case of OOS fish. And even if there's no official rule defining immediate release in stricter terms for OOS fish, posing for a photo with one or taking measurements for an artificial trophy would certainly make the catch look intentional, like you're celebrating a successful bass fishing trip in May. Nothing wrong however with commemorating a walleye catch during walleye season, even if it wasn't a keeper-sized walleye.

Of course ALL fish being released should be released quickly and carefully enough to maximize chances of recovery, even legal keepers that are being released voluntarily. But they're just talking about non-legal keepers here.

[Hawkman]

The regs should be a "sticky" right on top of every sub-forum in the fishing section. I am bumping this thread just because.