08-13-2011, 05:58 AM
[quote tmas]Even though this has very little to do with the matter at hand, i'll see if I can clear a bit up for your PBH.
Possession limits have several reasons in Alaska
I used to wonder the same thing, why have possession limit if you can just fill your freezer with vacpacked fish. A good friend I fish wish several times a year is a officer of ADFG. When I asked him why possession limits are in place this is a couple of the main reasons he explained to me.
Alaska is a boom and bust, harvest it while its here, type mentality. If you lived in Alaska, you understand that if you like eating salmon, you can't just go catch how much you'll eat this month and hope to be able to catch them again next month when you're out of fish. Alaska ADFG wants people to be able to harvest a lot of certain types of fish. Especially if they are putting money into the economy by spending in on fuel, lodging, groceries, tackle, charters, restaurants...but...
Having the possession limit in place helps to make sure people are having something done to preserve their fish in a timely manner, otherwise they can't keep fishing. ADFG supports harvest of fish, but want to make sure that fish taken is vacpacked, smoked, canned....before it spoils. If someone is on a weeklong fishing trip, and they keep limits the first 2 days, they have reached possession for most species, and must do something with that fish before it spoils. I've heard officers tell of guys who go on a 10 day fishing trip and expect that those fish they caught on day 1 will keep on ice until they get home.
Another reason is to help make sure people are following daily bag limts. Say you are checked at camp one evening and you have 15 sockeye salmon in your cooler and the daily limit is 3, possession 6. Well either you've kept over your daily limit, or you now have fish that is 5 days old and is starting to spoil.
There were several other reasons explained to me but i don't remember them well enough to explain clearly, and honestly a few of them i didn't quite understand. One of his main points had something to do with mixing sport caught and personal use harvests before being processed.[/quote]
This is some pretty sound reasoning as to why they have the verbage they do in their rules.
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Possession limits have several reasons in Alaska
I used to wonder the same thing, why have possession limit if you can just fill your freezer with vacpacked fish. A good friend I fish wish several times a year is a officer of ADFG. When I asked him why possession limits are in place this is a couple of the main reasons he explained to me.
Alaska is a boom and bust, harvest it while its here, type mentality. If you lived in Alaska, you understand that if you like eating salmon, you can't just go catch how much you'll eat this month and hope to be able to catch them again next month when you're out of fish. Alaska ADFG wants people to be able to harvest a lot of certain types of fish. Especially if they are putting money into the economy by spending in on fuel, lodging, groceries, tackle, charters, restaurants...but...
Having the possession limit in place helps to make sure people are having something done to preserve their fish in a timely manner, otherwise they can't keep fishing. ADFG supports harvest of fish, but want to make sure that fish taken is vacpacked, smoked, canned....before it spoils. If someone is on a weeklong fishing trip, and they keep limits the first 2 days, they have reached possession for most species, and must do something with that fish before it spoils. I've heard officers tell of guys who go on a 10 day fishing trip and expect that those fish they caught on day 1 will keep on ice until they get home.
Another reason is to help make sure people are following daily bag limts. Say you are checked at camp one evening and you have 15 sockeye salmon in your cooler and the daily limit is 3, possession 6. Well either you've kept over your daily limit, or you now have fish that is 5 days old and is starting to spoil.
There were several other reasons explained to me but i don't remember them well enough to explain clearly, and honestly a few of them i didn't quite understand. One of his main points had something to do with mixing sport caught and personal use harvests before being processed.[/quote]
This is some pretty sound reasoning as to why they have the verbage they do in their rules.
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