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17 hours ago, Brandy said:

I am in Washington, but I believe technically the Pumpkinseed is a gamefish that was introduced to this area. I would need a fishing license to "collect" I am sure, but it is nobody's business when/if I kill and eat them...as long as I don't release fish to the wild or start selling them I think I am pretty safe, though I would need to check on that to be sure. However that map confirms what I suspected, that around here, aside from a few species, the pickings may be slim.

@Brandy I would still be careful. You wouldn’t want a fine for keeping a game fish. I would have to look into Washington laws but here in Arizona it’s illegal to transport live fish from any of our lakes and you have to have a permit granted from game and fish to be able to keep any game fish as a pet. And that fish has to be bought not collected. I just don’t want anyone in trouble haha. 

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15 minutes ago, Cole said:

I hope I didn’t come off that way. That wasn’t my intention. As you know I’m all for native fish keeping haha.

No, no, not you @Cole, I knew what you meant. What I was thinking was that people refer to 'fish police' on forums. But here is a situation where there are armed law enforcement officers whose actual job is to be fish police and just the thought made me laugh!

It is one thing to fuss at someone for keeping a betta in a too small container, but quite another to have to power of the State to be able to enforce behavior.

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Fair enough, and heaven help me if I tried to touch a juvenile salmon or own an eagle feather (which you can find shed here) in the PNW. There are extensive guidelines for all kinds of collections here. I do think there are applicable permits for many things, and what is considered a protected vs invasive trash species varies from state to state. I was not seriously planning to do any collecting  in WA and there is a specific permit for transporting any live fish in WA. It is complicated, which is why people don't do this.

That said, I undoubtedly broke the law constantly as a child, with jars of something living kept for a period of time for observation...a normal part of kid life in the country. Might have been crickets, might have been tadpoles, might have been a juvenile channel catfish...

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On 12/9/2020 at 9:51 AM, Daniel said:

One way to learn more is to check out these two books.

IMG_3270.JPG.cdf9a4a1f68186f78dadceab4a93a52f.JPG

I got my copy of 'American Aquarium Fishes' from Bob Goldstein (the author) in exchange for a few Pygmy Sunfish. It covers everything and has some nice photos:

 

The 'Freshwater Fishes of South Carolina' book has good species pages with maps on each fish.

 

The sharp eyed will notice the Blue-barred pygmy sunfish on the cover of the South Carolina book. 🙂 And the even sharper eyed will notice the Rosario LaCorte book 'Aquarist Journey'  behind the South Carolina book. @Randy has several good interviews with Rosario on his Aquarist Podcast, which I highly recommend.

And now more books to add to my collection!

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It gets more confusing as you have to differentiate between game fish and nongame fish too.  I think in FL I can collect the pygmy sunfish but can't sell it unless I purchase a commercial fishing license.  That's if I'm interpreting the law correctly (which I'm probably not).  

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  • 2 months later...
On 12/9/2020 at 12:51 PM, Daniel said:

One way to learn more is to check out these two books.

IMG_3270.JPG.cdf9a4a1f68186f78dadceab4a93a52f.JPG

I got my copy of 'American Aquarium Fishes' from Bob Goldstein (the author) in exchange for a few Pygmy Sunfish. It covers everything and has some nice photos:


Does the Goldstein book also cover breeding, possibly how to breed or breeding setups?

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Update: I have pygmy sunfish fry in all three aquariums that have pygmy sunfish in them. I drop in some baby brine shrimp daily, but otherwise I have ignored the fry. What this leads to is a few big fry in each tank. I think the big fry eat the small fry when their bellies aren't full of brine shrimp.

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