Pegging beads...more controversial than pineapple on pizza???

[ycflyfisher]

Food for thought here. If we know that certain egg patterns can be taken to deep causing injury or mortality in fish, why fish it? If we know pegged eggs can hook a fish outside the mouth possibly causing injury to the eye, why fish it? Interestingly, if we look at the following reg as mentioned earlier it states;

"Article 1. 2.00 (b) b) Snagging is prohibited. Snagging is defined as impaling or attempting to impale a fish in any part of its body other than inside the mouth by use of a hook, hooks, gaff , or other mechanical implement."

"(c) It is unlawful to kill, or retain in possession any fish which has not voluntarily taken the bait or artificial lure inside its mouth."

In reading this reg we clearly see snagging is a prohibited act. No question there obviously. It further defines it as " impaling or attempting to impale a fish in any part of its body other than inside the mouth". We know that pegged eggs can do this.

The rub here is the DFW has bigger "Fish to fry" than worrying about this. But the reg is clear and if I had to take this into court, I feel quite confident I would garner a conviction re: pegged eggs.

I'm not a lawyer or a LEO and I wouldn't claim to know any more than most anglers about CA law, but I don't see this as cut and dried as you seem to.

"Article 1. 2.00 (b) b) Snagging is prohibited. Snagging is defined as impaling or attempting to impale a fish in any part of its body other than inside the mouth by use of a hook, hooks, gaff , or other mechanical implement."

To me the word attempting seems to more than just imply willful intent to snag; where "impaling" is successful willful intent, and "attempting to impale" is unsuccessful willful intent.

Agree that pegged beads have the potential to snag, but so does every other fly pattern. I've inadvertently snagged fish on refused dries (skated and dead drifted), subsurface patterns under a bobber, and on patterns design to fish on downstream presentations under tension. I'd further argue that anyone who hasn't, just hasn't fished enough.

I've never done anything except own up and pay the fine for any infractions of the law I've ever been ever been cited for, and I don't peg beads, but if I did in the manner that Gregg is describing and was cited for it, I'd be showing up for court.

The real problem IMO is we've just got too damned many laws in the People's Republic and more than just a few of 'em are written way too ambiguously.

[Darian]

ycflyfisher,.... I chose to treat the situation of using a fly/pegged bead as applied to snagging on an individual fish. If a fish is hooked outside the mouth, its is illegally hooked and must be released. I concur with your description of intent required to prove snagging. I believe that the drafters of the language in the section were attempting to describe those who deliberately attempt to snag fish. We've all seen the guys or there lost or abandoned very large treble hooks with lead wrapped shanks and/or over legal weight jigs with larger than legal sized trebles and it seems to me that's who is being targeted by this section, not the fly guy's who occasionally hook a fish outside the mouth and release the fish.

I've seen some borderline situations before. Once on the lower Eel River at Singley Pool in a low water year (before the low water closures were adopted) where Salmon were stacked up in a deep, confined hole and fly guys were anchored in prams in shallow water, casting to and regularly hooking some very nice fish. Those fish were all released. Now, I was fishing downstream and not having a lot of luck as the hole where the fish were was locked up by the fly guys in prams. After the group quit fishing, I saw one of the fly guys was a person I knew. So, I asked to see the fly they were using to catch all of those Salmon and was shown a silver Comet with a white saddle hackle tail and the same for hackle with bead chain eyes, tied on a short shank 1/0 hook. He, also, told me none of the fish hooked took the fly in the mouth. They were all snagged/released. Technically, this was legal (or at least they thought it was) as the fish were released, unharmed. But, to me that was still snagging. This situation was so obvious that wardens couldn't have missed it. Yet none were present. So, maybe the regs on this subject are ambiguous or low priority....

[k9mark]

I'm not a lawyer or a LEO and I wouldn't claim to know any more than most anglers about CA law, but I don't see this as cut and dried as you seem to.

"Article 1. 2.00 (b) b) Snagging is prohibited. Snagging is defined as impaling or attempting to impale a fish in any part of its body other than inside the mouth by use of a hook, hooks, gaff , or other mechanical implement."

To me the word attempting seems to more than just imply willful intent to snag; where "impaling" is successful willful intent, and "attempting to impale" is unsuccessful willful intent.

Agree that pegged beads have the potential to snag, but so does every other fly pattern. I've inadvertently snagged fish on refused dries (skated and dead drifted), subsurface patterns under a bobber, and on patterns design to fish on downstream presentations under tension. I'd further argue that anyone who hasn't, just hasn't fished enough.

I've never done anything except own up and pay the fine for any infractions of the law I've ever been ever been cited for, and I don't peg beads, but if I did in the manner that Gregg is describing and was cited for it, I'd be showing up for court.

The real problem IMO is we've just got too damned many laws in the People's Republic and more than just a few of 'em are written way too ambiguously.

I completely understand what your saying. I only offer what the law states clearly: "impaling or attempting to impale". Pegged eggs do this more so and its well known. Like I said, its not really a big deal for the DFW. Its the individuals decision. My confidence in conviction is based on 30 yrs in Law Enforcement if I had to prosecute this. Bottom line for me is to do the right thing when it comes to a technique that would cause unnecessary harm.

[Gregg]

So I realized I made a big mistake in my initial post on this topic. I wrote "When I fish a pegged bead the hook isn’t almost ALWAYS in the jaw, typically on the outside, and I can unhook and release the fish while it’s entirely in the water without ever touching it". When I said "typically on the outside" in my brain I was thinking on the actual jaw as opposed to inside the mouth like on the tongue or down the throat. It didn't occur to me at all that people would take this to be "in the eyeball" or "in the gills" or on the fin", and in reading some of these responses I'm inclined to believe that it might be interpreted that way. After posting this I've been on the water a bunch and have messed with pegged beads along with various other rigs because now that I was actually thinking about it, I wanted to see what the actual on the water outcome was. I'm completely convinced that a properly pegged bead hooks the fish in a completely safe and ethical manner a vast majority of the time. Since posting "on the outside of the mouth" I actually haven't hooked a fish on the outer rim of the jaw a single time. Every hook has set right inside the jaw, and like I stated, they were smooth and easy to remove without handling the fish. In my experience, this has proven to be the most humane and ethical experience. I did foul hook a handful of fish on a dropper over the last couple weeks, sometimes in the tail and a couple on the belly, using a super small midge pattern under a stonefly. I've also foul hooked fish more frequently on dries, especially younger / juvenile fish that attack it more aggressively. I'm not trying to be some champion of the pegged bead or anything, I'm just more and more convinced that people don't actually understand it and are relaying hearsay from people they respect, and not from actually trying it for themselves. I do this also with things and commonly end up being proven wrong because I wanted my bias to be true, even before proof or evidence.

It would be cool if this thread ended up teaching someone how to properly peg a bead if that's what they choose to do, I don't remember ever seeing it clearly described anywhere, and it seems that some people have some really weird setups involving multiple beads a foot above the hook or something insane. A rig like that never occurred to me and maybe seems more like an invented or outdated scenario to shift the conversation to an extreme / outlier than based in any reality.

Again, if a pegged bead is just too effective I'm on board with that conversation. It totally is, and I'm in agreement. But if you're trying to push the narrative that a properly pegged bead is an attempt at snagging or does more harm to a fish that any other setup, you're just straight up wrong. But don't take my word for it, go rig one up and try it for yourself, if even just for the sake of understanding and not as a regular mix of your gear.