Catch and cook on boat
 

Is catch and cook on a boat legal in Alberta, I am thinking about going to Slave lake this summer and stay overnight in the boat, so just want to make sure taht I don't do anything illegal...

No it's not.....eating you catch at home or on the lake makes no difference. Just remember your daily limits apply if it's in your cooler or your stomach!:)

Answer is a little confusing, I think he his trying to say, no it is not Illegal. So to clarify, it is perfectly legal to catch fish and eat them on the lake either ice fishing or open water. What you catch and eat is part of your daily limit.

I got it, Thanks for the reply

It is legal but two things come to mind, don't dump the scraps overboard if you have a line in the water or it could be considered chumming and make sure you have a fire extinguisher on board to satisfy the Transport Canada regs. It might also be a good idea to take a photo of the fish to prove it was of legal size just in case there is an issue.

I asked a wild life officer directly one time when he stopped by my boat to do his regular checks
" Is it considered chumming if you clean your fish and throw the guts over the side into the lake?"

His reply was "No, it's not as it is for the preservation of the quality of the fish, and the discarded bits come from a fish that was just harvested from that same body of water." So that has been my standard for many years. Having said that the law is open to the interpretation of the individual, so another officers opinion may differ.

Interesting Thorne. A buddy of mine was rinsing off little bits and pieces and blood from a walleye in the lake right at the shore. He had just gutted the fish at the proper fish cleaning station. F/W officer warned him about the possibility of receiving a ticket for cleaning it in the lake. Not saying you are wrong, Thorne. Just saying this officer had different ideas. I am pretty sure he was F/W and not a park ranger—Pigeon Lake. BEL

Lol...as I said, every officer has a different interpretation!! Well I guess due to your friends experience he found the opposite side of the coin! I'll mention it again to the next officer to see his opinion. The last guy I talked to was at Calling lake and he had no issue at all with cleaning fish in the lake.

I think it's in the B.C. regs somewhere that they recommend that you dispose of fish entrails in 'deep' water in the lake. Nobody likes to see entrails in the shallow water near the launch, - except the bears.

It all the officers discretion, I have been on both sides of the coin as I like to cook up a fish when ice fishing. One officer told me to wait until I was leaving to put the remains down the hole. Another told me to take them off the ice with me and another said I could just dump them down any hole and continue fishing ( implying the same hole) as long as my intention was not to bait the fish but simply return the remains to nature. I even asked another officer about it and he said it was fine as long as I didn't have a line in the water. So many different interpretations and no straight answers, I just figure its better to play on the safe side that ruin a day with a ticket.

Funny thing is I have seen people receive tickets for filleting fish at Pigeon Lake Provincial Park. I ended up asking the officer what to do since your not allowed to clean them outside of the cleaning station in the park but your also not allowed to transport a fish that can not be identified. Basically if you want to eat fish at the campsite your SOL. We ended up cooking the fish right on the tail gate at the boat launch.
I guess it really depends on the mood of the officer.

Often the officers mood depends on the attitude of the angler.

BW

Or the angler they talked to before talking to you.....

Pretty embarrassing how laws get forced in Alberta. Every officer has a different opinion and enterpatation to them. What’s legal for one guy is a ticket for the next.