What would you do?

While walking back to my car the other day, I spotted a family fishing. About 6 feet downstream from them I saw a Yellow bag in the water with a rock that was holding it in place.

I asked them if it was their bag. If it wasn't, I was going to take it with me and dispose of it. They said it was their bag.

Now why would this bag be floating in the water? I asked them if they caught anything and they said, "Yes". I asked them if I could see what they caught. The woman said sure and proceded to show me the contents in the bag. It was a 10" brown trout, still alive. They actually had the trout in a bag full of water.

I told them that they cannot keep the fish and they had to let it go immediately. The Man and his wife replied with, "Why?"

So I explained to them that they can only keep 1 fish above 15" and explained to them that the place is a Trout Conservation area. The guy was a bit upset and started asking me, "Well who are you?" What do I tell them? So I told them I was a member of a trout conservation group and gave the the web site address to Trout Unlimited. Anyway, they did let the fish go after I took out my ruler to show them that their fish was not quite 15". The woman said to me, "I thought it was 1 fish under 15." She was very understanding but her husband was a bit annoyed possibly that I wasn't minding my own business.

Who's business is it anyway?

Since it was a bit dark outside, I couldn't see what they were using. My guess is that they were using some type of bait because the guy had a rod in the water with a T-stick and was watching his line (like the people you see fishing in a park lake). Finally he picks his rod up and notices he has a fish on. I thought at first that it was a big brown (remember, it's dark out), but it turned out to be a 15" Sucker. Although he did have a box of lures with him, I suspect he was using bait.

What's your opinion?