Wis. Stat. § 29.401

This is the official text of Wis. Stat. § 29.401, part of Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Statutes — the complete compiled statutory law of Wisconsin, organized into numbered chapters by subject.

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Possession of fishing equipment.

Official statutory text

(1)

(a) No person may possess or control at any time any trammel, gill, or hoop net, or any other kind of net, nets, or fish trap that might take, catch or kill fish in the counties of: Adams, Barron, Burnett, Calumet, Chippewa, Clark, Columbia, Dane, Dodge, Dunn, Eau Claire, Florence, Fond du Lac, Forest, Green, Green Lake, Iowa, Jackson, Jefferson, Juneau, Lafayette, Langlade, Lincoln, Marathon, Marquette, Monroe, Oneida, Outagamie, Polk, Portage, Price, Richland, Rock, Rusk, Sauk, Sawyer, Shawano, Taylor, Vilas, Walworth, Washburn, Washington, Waukesha, Waupaca, Waushara, Winnebago and Wood except minnow nets and minnow traps, whitefish and cisco nets, dip nets, crab traps and turtle traps as provided in this chapter or by department order.

(b) Nothing in this subsection prohibits the department or its agents from having in possession, using, or causing the use of, any kind of nets as provided under other sections in the statutes, or prohibits the possession or use of nets by contract fishers who are operating under the supervision of the department.

(c) This subsection does not apply to any net or trap used to take, catch or kill farm-raised fish.

(2m) The department may not promulgate or enforce a rule that prohibits persons from possessing barbed hooks while fishing for trout in inland trout waters, as defined in s. 29.2285 (1) (a) , during the period beginning on January 1 and ending on the Friday immediately preceding the first Saturday in the following May.

History: 1985 a. 332 ; 1991 a. 316 ; 1997 a. 27 ; 1997 a. 248 ss. 446 , 447 ; Stats. 1997 s. 29.401; 1999 a. 178 ; 2005 a. 25 .

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.