Posted on 08/18/2011 12:31:35 AM PDT by nickcarraway
An angler who caught a huge fish in the White River and kept it but didn’t accurately identify his catch may be paying as much as $1,500 for his mistake as well as losing his licenses for three years, according to a press release from the state.
According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, Ryan McCullough of Bethel was fishing downstream of the federal fish hatchery in Stockbridge on July 25 when he hooked and landed a 9.5-pound anadromous Atlantic salmon that measured 31½ inches long. He misidentified it as a brown trout and kept it. A photo of the big fish appeared in a local newspaper.
Fisheries biologists who had previously put radio-transmitters in Atlantic salmon that had migrated upstream in the Connecticut River to spawn noticed the photo. They also discovered one of the two salmon they were monitoring in the White River was now transmitting its signal from dry land in Bethel.
State Game Warden Keith Gallant turned up the missing salmon in a freezer in Bethel and McCullough was issued a citation to appear in Windsor Superior Court on Sept. 27.
Well that’s what you get for being lazy buddy.
Should have gutted that fish before you put it in the freezer.
If you had you would have gotten rid of that pesky radio transmitter.
I guess I better not post pictures of my stuffed spotted owl collection.
I can see why they were suspicious. I've heard of walking catfish, but not walking salmon.
Somewhere in the Bering Sea on a Soviet stern trawler....
The fishing vessel factory manager was summoned to help fix a problem sluicing fish from the deck holding bins to the factory below...something was jammed in the opening over the conveyor belt.
I followed him as he made his way through the pipes, racks, and conveyors to the place where a few men were crowded around with their heads together, working on it. When the manager arrived, the men drew back to reveal part of a tail...and just then the huge tail flipped through the opening and fanned out - silver and dark blue and sparkling with dislodged scales. A grizzled old sailor grinned at me and said in broken English, with gusto, “Voman!” They were all joking that the giant salmon stuck in the hatch opening was a mermaid - I like to think it made their day because their jobs were real hard without a constant effort to find humor wherever they could.
“They also discovered one of the two salmon they were monitoring in the White River was now transmitting its signal from dry land in Bethel.”
I guess they missed the bit where it was going down the Interstate at 60mph.
Gee, it’s an even easier mistake to make than I thought; they look the same to me. Head, tail, gills, fins, scales, spots.... /s
Now that is a truly intriguing story...one cannot help but speculate on what you were doing on a Soviet trawler somewhere in the Bering Sea...
Either NOAA Fisheries Inspector or Coast Guard fisheries boarding inspection...
He is paying for the photo in the paper not the fish.
The top fish is a Brown Trout
The bottom fish an Atlantic Salmon.
Yeah, prolly not a good idea.
Ditto for your a collection of Bald Eagle feathers ;-)
We have way too many government hirelings with way too much time on their hands.
It was obvious to the inspectors when the “trout” had bearnaise vice an almondine sauce covering it.
Indeed. I would recommend radio-transmitters be fitted to every government inspector so that their movements might be tracked.
Thank cod the game warden hopped off his perch and skated down the pike to ID the fish. Or maybe he drove a turbot to the scene of the crime. No doubt the perp will carp, but what he did was crappie.
Top - salmon. Bottom - trout. Without knowing anything specific about these two fish, the mouth on the top one looks like a salmon to me.
This was a guess, I have no idea which is truly which without looking them up.
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