Roadkillwarrior

This comeing Sunday a couple of my friends are going to have a fishing tournament for largemouth bass just for fun and I was wondering since it is a private pond if the slot limits for public waters still applied? Can you make your own slot limit for your own private pond or not? Thanks for any replies!

Cant wait till this this weekend, most of the people in it would be considered rookies compared to my friend and I, kinda fill sorry for them-lol. Everyone has to put in $5.00 and we are up to $50.00 so far, which will be ours!!!

Chuck7

Let me know how it goes..I've won alot of those kind but our boats were in seeing distance.

goherd1111

You can do whatever you want on a private lake, as long as you have the landowners permission.

Roadkillwarrior

I hope you dont get me in trouble because Im going to take your word-lol
I would think that you could do what ever you want on a private pond but it wouldnt surprise me if they could inforce laws on private waters.

Oh ya, any tricks you are willing to tell to better my odds of winning!!

Well, if you dont see me on here for a while its probably because Im behind bars. But as long as its worth it, Ill be fine.

mauser06

call your state fish commision and ask them. im not sure what a slot limit is...

on a small pond with friends i see no need to really kill fish or anything...if your not killing the fish i dont see how the law can really get you..unless you have illegal sized fish or #s of fish in your possession wether or not you plan to kill them...

think of it like game laws...can you legally kill anything you wish on private property??? not in anywhere i know...rules are rules..period. and in alot of states people only own the land...the water is considered public in alot of cases...i know people that will fish posted property..legally because so long as they dont step on the land they are allowed....wierd stuff

JoshKeller

but fish cant walk across the boundaries. ponds that are private owned, have privately owned fish. not the same case for deer.

mauser06

you have a valid point...thats interesting...i never really thought of it..but im pretty sure in PA that regulations are regulations. in PA i could see trout or something that the fish commission doesnt stock and arent native fish...

but fish like bass for example are found nearly everywhere...most arent stocked..from farm ponds and strip mine ponds to lakes and streams and rivers...

id definently check with the state...i wouldnt wanna be caught over my limit with illegally sized fish in my possession and maybe out of season to find out the law came and i was busted...seems like a foolish way to go down.

now that im thinking about it though, sportsmans clubs that stock trout usually set their limits higher than the state limits...hmmmmm

Chuck7

The place in my avator is a slot limit place. I've had a few tournaments in there,It's very risky because it get patrolled . You must throw back every fish within that slot of it's dead or not The slot rule is...

You may keep 3 bass
They must be all under 15 inches and ONE may be over 24 for a trophy.


Our normal lakes are 5 bass over 14 "


The management area I fish is.... ALL bass must be released.

Roadkillwarrior

We won!!!! The pond we were fishing was full of stunted bass, and are biggest bass was only 1lb 1oz,"Bait in other words". The rules were changed up a bit, which made it quite a bit harder. We could only keep five bass to weigh and they had to be atleast 12" long. You also couldnt have any more than two rods per person in the boat. My partner and I ended up catching a total of 22 bass. The group that even came close to beating us only caught a total of five bass and only four were able to be weighed. The other groups didnt catch squat. They accused us of cheating because they couldnt believe all the bass that we caught, they think that we went out the day before and caught fish and put them on a stringer and picked them up while we were fishing. I still dont understand how some of the teams didnt catch any fish, must be just that good-lol!! We started fishing at 6:00 am, and it was still dark so we were useing top water lures and just had to listen for the fish to hit, it was realy exciteing to hear a fish slam my lure and set the hopeing to hook it. Prize was 25$ each. Well, good luck on your fishing.

Phil from Maine

Here we have slot limits on bass as well, 3 fish all can be under 10 inches or one over 16 inches. In a tourney you can keep 5 live fish to be returned after weighing in. Those returned are taken out to different areas of the lake to keep the fish from over crowding one area. Then we have one lake with a no bass rule and another lake you have no limit as long as all fish are under 10 inches in length. I can't seem to understand all those different rules on each body of water you are on. You need to be a lawyer almost to fish some of the waters here. I like to fish an area that has 3 fish limits after June 15th any size or bag limit, but I let them all go back as I do not like to eat bass.