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16 Ridiculous Fishing Laws That Will Make Your Jaw Drop

16 Ridiculous Fishing Laws That Will Make Your Jaw Drop

Make sure to have a fishing license for your state, respect the property you’re fishing on, catch and release. All of those rules seem simple enough. Fishing while not breaking the law is very doable, but did you know you might be breaking some of these lesser known fishing laws? You might be breaking the law just by wearing pajamas or fishing alone on Sunday! While some of these are either so ridiculous that they are/were never enforced, or have since been repealed by governments with common sense, check out the weirdest fishing laws in American history:

  1. In California, it is against the law to shoot at any kind of game from a moving vehicle, unless the target is a whale.
  2. In Idaho, you may not fish from a camel’s back.
  3. In Chicago, it is illegal to fish in your pajamas
  4. In Muncie, Indiana it’s a crime to carry fishing tackle into a cemetery.
  5. In Indiana and Kansas, no one may catch fish with their bare hands.
  6. In Kentucky, it is illegal to fish with a bow and arrow.
  7. In Louisiana, chasing fish in a city park is against the law.
  8. In Montana, it is illegal for married women to go fishing alone on Sundays, and illegal for unmarried women to fish alone at all.
  9. In Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Utah (none of which touch the ocean) it is illegal to go whale fishing.
  10. In Ohio, it is illegal to get a fish drunk.
  11. In Oklahoma, fish may not be contained in fishbowls while on a bus.
  12. In Oregon, canned corn is not to be used as bait for fishing
  13. In Pennsylvania, you may not catch a fish by any body part except the mouth.
  14. In Pennsylvania, dynamite is not to be used to catch fish.
  15. In Tennessee, it is illegal to use a lasso to catch a fish.
  16. In New Jersey, it is against the law for a man to knit during the fishing season.

Updated November 30th, 2015 at 2:53 PM CT