Breaking the law for a family reunion
111 Panfish would make for quite a fish fry, and a family reunion was the reason this angler gave to law enforcement.
One hundred and eleven panfish sounds like a great day fishing until you check the regulations. When a guy on one of two boats anchored closely together started acting nervous law enforcement decided to check his harvest. Oops.
If you think about this it's just really bad behavior. It's doubtful that this guy kills more than a hundred panfish every day - or at least there's a good chance the story he told the cops was valid - he was doing it for a family reunion. We just had one with only thirty people and good thing we did not decide to stock the refigerator with bluegill.
From The Grand Rapid News:
Upon getting consent to search the boat, Wood began counting fish in the live well while Lockwood located a concealed ice cream pail filled with several more pan fish. In total, the angler was in possession of 40 pan fish and one largemouth bass, according to the report.
He quickly told the officers that the "extra" fish belonged to his buddies in the next boat, but those accusations were quickly denied by the anglers in the other boat. Further interviews led to the lone angler admitting to addition pan fish being caught earlier in the day.
Those fish were being kept in the back of his vehicle, the report said. A search of the vehicle revealed a cooler with a large block of ice in it laying on top of an additional 71 pan fish, for a total of 111.
