My brother fished that area earlier this week and caught beaucoup rat reds. He only caught a couple keepers out of all the ones he caught. This time of year the rat reds and puppy drum are all over the place and the Game Wardens know it, too.
I know it can be frustrating when all you're catching is 15 1/2 inchers and you want some fresh fish to eat, BUT it's a risk to even try to do something like that when it's easy access for the game warden to check you on the side of the road (or anywhere else for that matter). That was an extremely excessible number of fish and they definitely knew what they were doing was against the law. When fishing that area we won't even risk keeping a fish that's right at 12 in (trout) &/or 16in. (red or drum) for fear it may shrink on the ice. I've been checked many times fishing that area for size, creel, and license. Now that I live & fish here in Texas, it's hard for me to throw back 14 3/4 inch trout and 19 3/4 inch reds and only keep 10 and 3 legal fish respectively, but I do it because that's the "limit".
Glad those guys were caught!
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