I'm a former Fish & Wildlife (Conservation) Officer and the way I see it is as follows......
Unless you had the foresight to get your injured buddy to fill out and sign a paper with the proper information (name, licence no., date, etc.) authorizing you to be in posession of and transport his fish for him you would be in a position of illegal possession of fish in excess of your allowable limit. Under those circumstances you could be charged, but it would be very unlikely to happen in the normal sense. Unfortunately, many individuals who are of the type to keep over their legal limit of fish are very inventive in coming up with reasons for being in posession of the extra fish. In many cases those reasons are entirely fabricated. Most officers with any amount of experience would likely be able to recognize genuine concern over a ligitimate case of injury (or whatever) to a fishing partner, but at the same time, there are some pretty good actors out there. What seems likely to me is that you could get a "ticket" for the "infraction" with the condition that if your story checks out (you may be required to provide proof, or the officer may follow up & check) that the ticket is voided and all is well. Most officers have no interest in being unreasonable under circumstances of human (and sometimes animal) health or injury. However, as I have suggested, they commonly are told mistruths and after enough time tend to become skeptical of many excuses, and hence might likely follow the procedure of collecting the relevant data and possibly laying an initial charge that would be withdrawn once the story is validated. If, in the event you encountered a real "so and so" of an officer, and he/she charged you under such circumstances and didn't withdraw the charge after verifying the circumstances, I would certainly go to court and explain those circumstances to the judge (or whoever was presiding over your case). In cases of valid concern about getting an injured partner or heart attack victim, etc. to medical care, I would be very surprised if the judge didn't dismiss the charges. I like to think also, that almost any (all) officer(s) would check the validity of the claim, and drop any charge that might have been initiated. I suppose though, that one would never know for absolute sure until it happened. For the most part, our enforcement people are far too busy dealing with true lawbreakers to be interested in prosecuting an individual under those circumstances. At least I hope they are.
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Just a thought...
) Can't see it happen but after my experience a couple weeks ago at the rattlesnake tourny you never know.
. Needless to say it was a pretty trivial infraction and and a minor oversight on my buddies side. 1 barb out of three on the treble... give him a break for petes sake. Then the CO goes into his little speach about if you push the hook through your pants and it grabs any thread on the pull out it is illegal. according to him that is the standard that all CO's use
please explain.
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