This question has come up before and the answer we got from Encon was the following if I can recall it correctly.
When leaving Ct. waters and fishing in RI waters at that point it is RI fishery laws that prevail. But when you return home to Ct. waters then your possession catch must conform to Ct. fishery laws for both the Ct. in-transit and Ct. landings.
The only way this can be avoided is if your boat is trailered from Ct. territory into RI territory and launched at a RI boat launch. Your fishing should be restricted to RI waters and you load your boat onto your trailer, with your legal RI possession catch, at the RI boat launch and then proceed to trailer your rig and catch over land back into Ct. This basically follows the Inland Fisheries practices for cross-border trips from Ct. to other states for fishing freshwater destinations.
I think this is what is in effect for this situation now.

Buck and ecurB,

Thanks for answering my question. This is what I expected. It does beg the question if the travel were reversed someone kept black fish caught in CT water illegally (before October 10)and returned to RI waters the fish caught illegally is now legal. Common sense indicates that a fish should be considered legal or illegal based on the regulations of where it is caught at the time. Today's phone camera technology, enables us to take a picture that stamps the time and location of that picture. I'm going to pursue this. The current regulations defy logic. Any ideas where to begin?

Thanks,

MikeV

I understand the regulation. It still does not make sense that a fish legally caught in RI is illegal in CT the adjacent state. At the time they made the regulation I'm guessing that they they used the "short" mentality. If a fish is short, it must be released even if it is dead or dying. If people were allowed to keep dead/dying shorts, dishonest people would claim many or most shorts were dead or dying which would increase the mortality rate.

The difference is today's cell phone cameras stamp pictures with time & location. A person can prove where any photographed fish was caught.

I will try to get this sorted out before the spring

MikeV

I appreciate that it will be difficult to get a regulation changed. What pisses me off is that the objective of the regulation is to protect fish from being over harvested. There is no better way to prevent over harvesting of CT fish, than having CT people fish somewhere (RI) else. With technology today there are a number of ways that could verify
the location of a boat. It's common sense that the CT DEP should be encouraging CT residence to fish out of state to reduce the pressure on CT fish stocks.

I should be able to get this done I will keep you posted of my progress.

MikeV

Yup. It all depends on where you happen to be when you get checked.