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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wjschmaltz" data-source="post: 340898" data-attributes="member: 6150">Fair.  The simple reason is that we all agree that the line needs to be drawn somewhere and the vast majority have decided that’s a pretty fair and common sense place to draw it.  I’ve shown up at the river here at 10 pm and smacked a limited of Reds, had a beer on the bank watching my watch and smacked another limit right after midnight more times than I can count.  I’ve checked with law enforcement numerous times on the legality of it and there are typically several others on the river just like me.  It’s an agreed upon law in a fishery that is managed for escapement literally in real-time and can close or have an increased limit any day of the run.  I'm being repetitive, but to simplify it more, its just an agreed upon social norm while still meeting management objectives so I guess that’s what makes it OK. “People keeping limits day after day and keeping freezers full of fish destroys fisheries” is not an accurate statement.  It’s simply not true.  Now if you add the word “can” in there, it’s 100% true.  Everything is situational.  The vast majority of anglers are going a few times a year.  The next group in the majority is the guy that maybe goes a dozen weekends (likely most here).  And a tiny majority are the guys that are whacking and stacking more than a couple dozen limits a year.  All three user groups are taken into account when limits are set and I’d assume statistically are spread out well across bodies of water (the number of boats and user groups at the ramp in a small Kidder County lake is likely proportional to the number of boats and user groups at a large body like DL).   What is always lurking in the background is that tragedy of commons. When everyone gets into the same mindset. This is what happened back in the late 90's/early 2000's when guys were hitting perch lakes and filling several 5 gallon buckets. At that point things needed to change and they did.  Where I live the average user group is somewhat of a subsistence user like me who whacks and stacks so that’s how fisheries are managed and mostly everyone out there is on board.   I can see where there is not enough resource to go around and additional restrictions are needed and I’m all for it. I won’t argue that isn’t the case in MN. I known as close to nothing as you can get about the fishing in MN. I just REALLY have a hard time with the freezer portion of it is all.  A guy that fishes alone and has a family of 6 legally can’t catch enough for a family meal without technically lying and breaking the law. Nontypical case obviously but just an example.  Maybe if it’s such an issue they need to place an annual limit. We have several fisheries like that in AK where you need to record your catch on your license prior to leaving the water. At what point are we not allowed to apply for a deer tag until our freezer is empty of last year’s deer and so on and so forth. Just another slippery slope.</blockquote>

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