You get a five day tag for minnows because of VHS diesese and it apperas you can't pick your from creeks or use minnow traps anymore??


Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS) in New York
What is VHS?
Viral hemorrhagic septicemia (VHS) virus is a serious pathogen of fresh and saltwater fish that is causing an emerging disease in the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada. VHS virus is a rhabdovirus (rod shaped virus) that affects fish of all size and age ranges. It does not pose any threat to human health. VHS can cause hemorrhaging of fish tissue, including internal organs, and can cause the death of infected fish. Once a fish is infected with VHS, there is no known cure. Not all infected fish develop the disease, but they can carry and spread the disease to other fish. VHS has been blamed for fish kills in Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair (MI), Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River and Conesus Lake (Western NY). The World Organization of Animal Health has categorized VHS as a transmissible disease with the potential for profound socio-economic consequences. Because of this, they list VHS as a disease that should be reported to the international community as an exceptional epidemiological (study of diseases in large populations) occurrence.

SOunds like a good thing/law............. would you want your fishin lake to be decimated by disease just b/c you felt the need to catch your minnows and use them on another body of water.
We have that here, some lakes have a no live bait reg and some don't. I would catch my minnows in the same ponds and creeks as the local bait guy......... but I can't use them unless I buy them? Thats what gets me. In a lake where I am allowed to legally use live (and that means anything not artificial here) I am allowed to catch and use livebait from that body of water. Its just to stop tranmitting ANY disease. If I had my way live bait would be even more restricted.
You don't say how the disease is transmitted? Do some species of fish recieve/transmit the disease easier than others? Round here most limitations are put on trout ponds/lakes and rivers. My thinking is that trout being thinner skinned than most fish are more likely to contract disease. Although it could be that deep hokked trout (caught on live bait) stand a smaller chance to survive than say walleye and pike...... I don't know

That's my thing, I pick minnows from creeks flow into the river I fish. Right now I don't have to worry because my back is all screwed up but my son is fishing.

Another diesese/problem brought to us most likely from the ballest water of ships from Europe.

We have new bait laws here in Vermont too. From what I gather no more getting your own minnows and if you buy them it has to be from a dealer that gets them from a certified disease free source. It will certainly cost more for minnows now. The minnows you do buy can't be used the day after you initially use them. I guess you are supposed to dump them out in the garbage after your fishing trip. No more using dead salted minnows to attract large perch. I used to buy a quart of either pin heads or perch minnows and take them home and pour salt into the bucket. It kills them, gets the air out of their bladders so they sink and you can put them in a baggie and take them out on the ice. Throw a few into the hole every once in a while and they sink pretty fast. It really brings in those big perch schools that feed on the bottom in the winter. This VHS thing will probably end up stopping our commercial pan fishing here.

Charley-That law was in effect months ago in case you didn't know..Last minnows I bought cost be 4.50 a dozen and you can only keep them for 5 to 7 days...We get saw bellies from cayuga and you have to use them there as well..Can't take them home and use them tommorow either,which to me sounds damn stupid..
I don't know if the salted minnows are allowed or not...I guess it is a good thing to help prevent the VHS from spreading but what about the ships that are coming through the locks..Go figure..Have a goody

still no laws like that in ga, that im aware of

We had those laws in the Catskill Mtns we fished last year. But you didn't have to have a tag, but rather the receipt of your purchase of the bait.

I know it is easy to blame the F&W for the new rules as being too harshbut look at the alternatives. VHS is the equivalent of fishing CWD. It could spell the end of fishing as we know it. I live on the lake and would hate to see 2 feet of dead fish wash up periodically all summer. I have talked with some of the state biologists and they are scared to death that it will come here.