Spearfishing

[inthetundra]

I was reading one of the posted articles and noticed someone mentioned spearfishing. I never gave it a thought here because I thought is was illegal. Is it??? That's why I always pray for a trip to the ocean.

[dfreeman]

The Wisconsin DNR has a Pamphlet that is called 2004-2005 Spearing and Netting Regulations. On the internet this can be found at:



In this pamphlet it says under

Underwater Spear Fishing:

It is lawful to take the following fish species with the use of spears and spear guns by skin and scuba diving in all waters where spearing for rough fish is permitted from sunrise to sunset
during the listed spearing seasons: white bass, yellow
bass (striped), rock bass, crappie, bluegill, perch, pumpkinseed
(sunfish) and bullheads. The aggregate daily bag
limit is 25 for all species named except white and yellow
bass and bullheads for which there is no limit.

So, you do not have to go to the ocean to spear fish underwater.

The purists will say that you should only freedive when spearfishing. But the state is OK if you scuba dive.

Doug

[Omicron]

FreediveWI (on this board...) does a LOT of spearfishing - he'd definitely be able to fill you in on the details if you needed.

[FreediveWI]

In the southern half of the state you can spear rough fish, like carp, and panfish, like crappie. Bag limits are the same as for line fishing, something like 25 per person per day- I've never gotten close to that.

THe only exceptions are lakes that have trout planted in them- places like Lannon quarry and Devli's lake. In these lakes you can't spear anything! The odd expeception to this rule is Lake Wazee- it has had trout planted there in the past, but you can spearfish there. Even the local warden in that area freedives and speafishes in there.

THere are a few counties that you cannot spear in, something like 6 total. You need to check the DNR guidelins for specifics, but basically anything up in the Hayward area is off limits.

It is legal to spearfish, on scuba, in Wisconsin, but as someone already pointed out it is not considered to be very sporting. It is also legal to use either polespears or spearguns here. I mention this because if anyone has dove the Bahamas, or oter islands, you can only spearfish while freediving and then only with a polespear or Hawian sling.

You do need a basic fishing lisence, but nothing extra.

Jon