Lucky me

[flyfishguy]

Im a little late on this post considering i went at the beggining of september, but i just noticed there was a hunting section so i thot id make a post. My grandpa and I are from the island and he has been going up to Pink Mountain every year for the past 30 years and decided he was gunna take me considering i just got my licsense the other year and havent really been on a "hunting trip" and it was really worth the drive. We stayed there for two weeks. I ended up shooting my first every deer/whitetail up there. It was pretty decent too

Two days before we are about to leave I get really lucky and come across this while quading around looking for grouse, and being 16, only seen 1 other elk in my life and have a tag for elk i was pretty excited, so i snuck up on him and got em


And of course when we were up there was a river nearby and i did some fishing and caught my first and biggest bull trout of my life!

Good Trip

[typhoon]

Aren't Bull Trout closed for retention in September in the Peace Region?

Trout/char: 5, but not more than
• 1 over 50 cm
• 2 from streams
• 2 lake trout
• 1 bull trout
NOTE: Bull trout may only be retained from
Oct. 16 to Aug. 14. These fish may only be
from the Liard River watershed (or other
specified waters) and only 30-50 cm in
length. See below.
And you must release:
• Rainbow trout of any size from streams,
May 1 to June 15
• Lake trout under 30 cm
• Lake trout of any size, Sept.15 to Oct. 31
• Bull trout from the Liard
River watershed Aug. 15 to Oct. 15, and
from the Peace River watershed all
year (See tables for exceptions)

[nebc]

The bull trout was not legally taken as per Typhoon's post.

http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/fw/fish/reg...1_region7b.pdf

[bronjuan]

whoopsie doodles. Another accidental poach? I partly blame the layout of the regs. Most people are too lazy to read everything. It should really laid out such that the closure dates come before the possession quota.

Either way, I find the regs for char quite variable and you need to pay close attention. If you are ever in doubt of your knowledge of the particular regs, ALWAYS release any fish ESPECIALLY CHAR. They reproduce slowly and populations are easily threatend. Sad thing is they are often large and people get excited about large fish...bonk.

[typhoon]

I call B.S. I have never fished for Bull Trout and I don't live in that region, but red flags immediately went off when I saw that pic.
In 2 minutes I could determine that there is no retention allowed.
A char that size is probably more than 10 years old. Another example of great wild genetics lost.

[btree]

I totally agree - if you can't figure out the regs, you don't deserve to fish. Laziness is no excuse, and neither is the layout of the regs! (though probably they could be improved)...

It's a total shame to see a fish like that wasted!!!

[flyfishguy]

That week there had been a few natives that had been staying with us and he was the reason why I went fishing that day and caught that fish, If i been by myself or with my grandpa it would of been released. He wanted the fish for a couple of reasons, because he hadn't even seen or caught a bull trout that big in that river before and he wanted food. Also these natives live somewhat far from a store to buy there grocerys and being low on food he wanted it. Im not sure If he was aloud to keep the fish legally. But he was native to the land so i didnt really understand, being 16 and all... all i know is that the natives here in port alberni can do a lot of things that we cant do, so i didnt think anything of it. and also i posted these pictures to get "good feedback". Im quite aware we need to conserve our fish and im learning new things about doing that everyday. But i dont need all these comments, I know how to read and im aware theres regulations.
Thanks

[btree]

Well, you kinda walked into it didn't you... I can't say I'll even come close to apologizing for any of my comments. They are more rhetorical than anything - I assume you have a good handle on the regs, probably as good as any of us.

I appreciate your intentions for posting the picture, but if you caught it and killed it, I cannot defend your actions regardless of your story. To put it lightly, it approaches being a clear cut issue of poaching... obviously you are well aware of that in hind sight...

It's good to hear you appear to have a good attitude toward conservation and ethics, but it's still hard to stomach.

I hope you can appreciate where the comments are coming from, and I hope you'd have similar thoughts if you were in my shoes. I hope this "discussion" does not put a damper on your clear passion for fishing. I'm more than willing to give you credit for having your head and heart in the right place. We all make mistakes... but like I said, you kinda walked into it and it's quite hard to stomach.

Oh the folly of youth...

Not much any of us can do about it now except encourage good actions in the future.

[Steve Zissou]

Good rule of thumb:
Don't keep anything in a stream you don't know the regs 100% on.

[flyfishguy]

Well, you kinda walked into it didn't you... I can't say I'll even come close to apologizing for any of my comments. They are more rhetorical than anything - I assume you have a good handle on the regs, probably as good as any of us.

I appreciate your intentions for posting the picture, but if you caught it and killed it, I cannot defend your actions regardless of your story. To put it lightly, it approaches being a clear cut issue of poaching... obviously you are well aware of that in hind sight...

It's good to hear you appear to have a good attitude toward conservation and ethics, but it's still hard to stomach.

I hope you can appreciate where the comments are coming from, and I hope you'd have similar thoughts if you were in my shoes. I hope this "discussion" does not put a damper on your clear passion for fishing. I'm more than willing to give you credit for having your head and heart in the right place. We all make mistakes... but like I said, you kinda walked into it and it's quite hard to stomach.

Oh the folly of youth...

Not much any of us can do about it now except encourage good actions in the future.

Yeah no need to appoligize i was just stating what was on my mind and i guess you guys were to and see it differently, well just leave it at that than good convo tho, maybe people reading this will learn from my mistake