So I was getting ready to go to Pool 4 with a couple of crayfish traps to see if I could get a few to use for drum bait. I decided I needed to bone up on the regs so I searched for "crayfish" in the 2010 regulations and found this on page 15:
QUOTE:
It is unlawful to:
- Yada yada
- harvest bait (minnows, frogs, crayfish or other wild animals) from infested waters (pages 16 & 17).
Exception: Harvest for personal use is permitted in waters infested SOLELY with Eurasian watermilfoil. Harvested bait must ONLY be used in the water from which it is harvested. Bait may only be harvested using a cylindrical minnow trap not exceeding 16 inches in diameter and 32 inches in length.
Since the Miss is included in the infested water list, it looks like my plan is out the window. And elsewhere in the regs - crayfish can only be used as bait in the water where they were captured. So putting these two together, this means it is illegal to use crayfish as bait in ANY infested water in Minnesota. No crayfish can legally be used as bait in the Mississippi, St. Croix, Zumbro, or any other water listed on pp 16-17 of the 2010 regs (sans milfoil-only exclusion).
And its not just crayfish. I can't take any critters for bait in any of these waters, even if my intent is to use them right where I catch them. Minnows, gizzard shad, whatever...
Taken literally, if you fish any of Minnesota's infested waters, basically you cannot trap, angle, or seine your own bait from these waters, even if you intend to only use them in the same water as taken from. I had mistakenly assumed it was legal to harvest and use bait from infested waters as long as they were used in the same place. I guess I had that wrong.
Am I interpreting the regs correctly? It seems pretty straight up in the text. Somebody please tell me its not so... We're catching up with Wisconsin, where they'll be dragging JKnuth off to jail for kick netting minnows in a creek.