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Post by duff on Jan 5, 2008 13:31:48 GMT -5
I am not saying anything about geese, throw in 20 snows per day during the regular season and you could have a bunch of geese in your freezer. For ducks it is easy 6 per day, some species have their own limits you must obide by. Be safe and label and date each bag.
For all other small game and fish it is very clear.
Private ponds don't have any state enforced limits for size or bag.
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Post by danf on Jan 5, 2008 13:35:02 GMT -5
Private ponds don't have any state enforced limits for size or bag. Exactly. Who (besides myself) is going to be able to say for sure that any crappie or bass in my freezer is from my home pond or from Raccoon or Cataract lakes? Labeling does no good; it's just as easy to write the wrong place down as it is to say they are all from my personal pond....
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Post by Russ Koon on Jan 5, 2008 15:09:13 GMT -5
Yep. That's part of the reason I'd like to see the limits dropped or at least defined as they are in Texas and Florida as ending at your door.
The dreaded freezer searches are pretty much worthless as a tool for LE, except to gather reinforcing evidence for some other violation. I think they could still be used for that purpose without the possession limits even being a law.
If there have been successful prosecutions for possessing too many animals, they are really for being too stupid to label the game differently or to hire a lawyer. Either move on thepart of the accused should get them off the hook.
That leaves the only real effect of the law as being a very occasional inconvenience to the honest hunter who may need to adjust his menu or find some new friends who would like to eat some game. Or at least some who think they might like some squirrels, but decide they probably wouldn't, after the original hunter runs low on his supply, and "gifts" them back.
It's a well-intentioned law that wasn't that well thought out, and has ended up as a nuisance that applies only to those who try very hard to remain legal.
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Post by duff on Jan 5, 2008 16:00:54 GMT -5
You certainly have a major beef with this law/rule whatever...Good luck. There's been more energy wasted on this topic over the past few days then most small towns consume.
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Post by Russ Koon on Jan 6, 2008 1:32:43 GMT -5
Well, duff, I guess those of us down here on the White River must have more energy to burn than you folks up on the Wabash. Colder up there, maybe you're in hibernation mode? 8^)
I'm sorry to hear that you think it's a waste of energy for us to try to get something straightened out that does bother several of us, instead of just continuing to put up with the nuisance or ignoring it and hoping that we're never selected for a freezer inspection.
I only see two options that will spare you from being distressed by this waste of energy...I could just shut up about it (which ain't gonna happen), or you could spare yourself any further distress by skipping this thread. That one's up to you.
Whatever you decide, no hard feelings on my part. I knew not everyone would be interested when I started the thread.
I have been a little surprised at the number of guys who seem to be opposed to the idea of even bringing it up. I still haven't seen any good reasons not to pursue at least a clarification, so that we hunters who actually care whether we're legal will be better able to tell when we have to eat something from the freezer or end our seasons early due to a lack of family or friends who will accept our gifts of wild game.
Seems like a lot of guys on here would like to see the OBR changed, and were glad to see the deer ammo rules opened up to include PCR's, and quite a few seemed to like the change that allowed those of us who are licensed to carry concealed to exercise our right to self-defense while enjoying all our outdoor activities. This change seems to me to be just another, maybe more minor, improvement to the laws governing us in our enjoyment of the outdoors.
And it could be that the law may already read the way we would like it to, or that there has already been a definition that makes our effort completely unnecessary. The first thing I'm still seeking is some real info on how the law is interpretted right now. Even that seems to be sort of hard to come by. I would have expected more guys to be interested, if only from curiosity.
I'll try to just keep adding any further info on the subject to this thread, rather than starting any others on the same subject, so I won't be bothering any of you guys who don't give a hoot by having to open threads you're not interested in. Best I can do for you for now.
Good hunting, and if you get too many geese, I hope you see the CO's coming in time to write some other names on any excess ones in your freezer.
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Post by bsutravis on Jan 6, 2008 8:32:13 GMT -5
For what it's worth..... First, Russ...... interesting debate that you've stumbled upon, and I would say that I do side with you in terms of changing some wording and such. IMO I think that your possession limit should cease upon the cleaning and/or freezing of the game. Nowhere is this area more grey than in the case of geese......and that issue has been already mentioned. Now, in response to someone's reply that the limits were put in place to prevent someone from harvesting their limits every day and therefore should remain. I think that argument is for the birds. Should I be penalized for being a skilled hunter/fisherman? The use of a possession limit to cease me from going out on day 3 and getting my limit of game is ludicrous. If THAT is the intention, than there needs to be a stipulation on your license that states that if you are able to get your bag limit on a specific species more than 2 consecutive days than you must sit out the third.......so that other, less skilled hunters may have a chance. Silly argument IMO. So...... where are we? We are 5 pages deep into a debate that obviously Russ is quite passionate about. Me, well.....I can live with it either way, but I would nod my head in approval if they went to something that defined the possession as a limit in which the animal is still afield, or in the hunters care and transport....and thus ends upon plucking, skinning, cleaning, and/or freezing of a specific game animal. What I hope is....that Russ, since you are so behind your convictions on this that you are working to actually change the rule, versus just letting it be a topic on an internet message board. Best of luck, but if your efforts fail I wouldn't get too worked up about it.... because chances are that the Men In Green aren't sniffin' around the Koon estate looking for an extra squirrel in your freezer. They've got bigger fish to fry.
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Post by old3arrows on Jan 6, 2008 18:39:36 GMT -5
Very good post Travis!! BRAVO!!!!!!! I don't do a whole lot of squirrel hunting, but my property holds a lot and they tend to travel a lot in and out. Last year a hunting friend harvested 33 before deer season, this year he only harvested eight. If he wanted to he could take five a day for the rest of the season and probably not put much of a dent in the population. There is no need to do that, but thinning a few out doesn't hurt a thing either. Now rabbits, I'm stingy with because I love to eat the little buggers with biscuits and gravy! You won't find a limit in my freezer cause they don't seem to make it that long!
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Post by duff on Jan 6, 2008 18:39:57 GMT -5
Russ, didn't mean for the comment to sound like it is a waste of time. I was including myself in the fact that we can go round and round (energy wasted) on here and not solve anything. Good luck in your efforts. It won't hurt my feelings to have it clarified however you see fit, I just don't see where there is any confusion in what possession means, but that is just me. Clearly there are several of you guys who feel we should get rid of the possession limits all together.
Now we know why COs avoid this question on the internet boards.
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Post by indianahick on Jan 6, 2008 22:48:47 GMT -5
Defined Daily in the field possession limit= DAILY BAG Limit.
Number in possession in both the freezer and field= TWO Times Daily Bag.
Being able to hunt and kill daily bag limit every day and put it in the freezer does not necessarily state that you are a good hunter. Could just mean that you are a glutton. Most people do not care if you put 20 to 30 squirrels, rabbits in your freezer. Now when you talk about 100's that is a different story.
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Post by Russ Koon on Jan 7, 2008 2:03:03 GMT -5
Duff, yeah, I know there have been a lot of posts.
I've seen several issues come and go on here, and it seems like it takes a lot of chewing on some of these things to accumulate much interest. But it's a long time until the turkeys start gobbling and the mushrooms pop up 8^).
I would like to keep pursuing this. It's funny, too, because I really can't remember ever being over the possession limit on anything myself. Would have been once on crappies if my brother and I had put ours in the freezer for later, but we ended up frying up one limit the day we got them. We had no idea that I'd have been in violation had we put them all in my freezer (he was still a kid and didn't have a freezer) unmarked with anything identifying him as the owner of half of them.
And there might have been a couple times on squirrels, back when I hunted them more than I have in recent years. Usually, my appetite for them pretty well kept up with my ability to bag them.
I just have a thing about regulations that don't make good sense, or ones that are way more of a nuisance to the honest legal guy than to the violator.
It's funny, now that I'm searching around to see how other states handle the possession limits, to see that most places seem to have the exact same comments being made and the same confusion and variety of misinformation that we've seen here.
The folks that seemed to be most tuned in to the regulations were the guys on a taxidermy site that I found. The pro taxidermists mostly had to stay up to date and well versed on the limits, but even there the amateurs and a few pros were having trouble figuring out the law. Of course they were mostly concerned with the paperwork and tagging requirements to remain legal with the birds and animals that were temporarily in their possession to be mounted.
Some guys used decoys made from actual skinned ducks, called "stuffers" and had concerns about whether they had to be counted in the bag limits. Apparently there are exceptions specifically written into the federal reg's to handle that situation.
The migratory birds are covered under federal reg's and sometimes also under state reg's that add to the confusion.
A few guys were surprised to hear that the waterfowl jerky that they enjoyed carrying for a snack while hunting had to be included in their possession limit.
The question of whether the game had to be marked as belonging to another famiily member in the same household had every possible answer, as did the question of whether the recipient of "gifted" game had to be licensed to hunt that game in order to possess it as a gift. Some CO's in some states said yes, others said no.
The only consistent thing about it so far is that hunters on every board I checked were asking, and receiving pretty much the same opinions, guesses, and questionable info as the others. Even the fishing sites were full of much of the same confusion on the subject.
I had started out with the idea that if I could get enough guys interested to maybe get up a petition and carry a suggested change or choice of a couple changes to a DNR meeting or two, that maybe we could get a simplification, or at least some definitions, from the DNR here in IN that would clear everything up. After seeing how widespread the confusion is I think it might be a bit tougher than I thought.
The only places where I didn't see all the confusion was from posters from Texas and Florida, where the possession means possession while in the field or transporting back to your place of residence. The game is then yours to gift, eat, or keep forever frozen as you please. The only guy I saw who was getting all messed up there was one Texan who insisted that the Texas possession limits on upland game also applied to his waterfowl, and wouldn't believe the guys who were trying to inform him better.
I suspect that the Texas/Florida type regulations would be the best change to try for, as that would eliminate nearly all the questions without removing the limits entirely. In my opinion, since the violations would be so extremely easy to escape by writing someone else's info on the packages or "gifting" the game to anyone you know with a freezer until the stash in your own freezer was below the limits, we'd probably not see any noticable difference in game hogging if they simply dropped the limits altogether, but that will probably be just too revolutionary an idea to try and sell the DNR on. They might be interested in following a few other major states examples, though, if it looks like it would clear up a lot of confusion for honest hunters and still leave the government with whatever good they can get out of the limits as a tool for catching a few really stupid poachers.
I doubt that I'll ever again get ambitious enough to have anything close to a possession limit in my freezer. But if I do, I'd rather be able to go hunt some more if I want to, without needing to eat some just to stay legal. This just seems like something that would be better if we could fix it so that everyone could know where they stand regarding being legal.
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