How to properly change hunting, fishing, and trapping rules in Wisconsin

Most hunting and fishing regulations have a few antagonists, someone or a group who does not like the fact that we, for example, can’t kill turkeys in Wisconsin with a rifle.

Usually these opponents are against a regulation because they want to hunt or fish in a different way.

Sometimes it may not seem like it, but there are rules to make rules.

For wildlife and fish, rule-making is usually best accomplished by using science and social science to determine how many fish we can put in a creel and in a freezer.

Recently, an angler who wanted trout rules changed was not able to accomplish his dream using the established system.  He went streamside and, using his own rules, violated those written for all anglers to follow.

The violator hoped that a jury would agree that his rules were better than those written in Wisconsin’s state statutes.

This is not the arena where these decisions should be made.

A jury could, I suppose, find him innocent and he would be home free, but the rules should and must still stand until they are changed by the state’s normal process.

That being the case, how is any person such as this any different than a poacher who shoots a deer out a truck window when the season is closed?  Or one who shoots nine pheasants on public land because they are all crowded in one corner of a field?