[Flipper]

I am a little confused about the whole alwives as bait, thing. In one portion of the Anglers Guide it says that you cannot catch, fish for, or even posses alewives (I understand that they are talking about river run species). In another section it says that you can fish for and keep the landlocked version that has been established in a few lakes in the state. As always, most fish that you catch legally - you can use for bait (with a few exceptions). This means that I should be able to go to Crystal lake, for example, and catch a bunch of landlocked alewives and use them for bait in the river for stripers. I can bet that if a DEP official caught me doing that, he would go nuts, even though they were legally obtained.

Another thing is, in another section of the Anglers Guide, it lists the lakes where alewives are illegal to use as bait. So that means, that I can use them in every other lake, right? I also know for sure that there are bait shops in this state that sell big live alewives for bait. So how would a DEP official know where I got my alewives from. If I bought them from a bait shop, is it illegal to use them in the river for stripers? Or ,for that matter, any lake (other than the ones listed) for pike?

What do you guys think?
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