Question:
While bank fishing in the Delta recently, I watched some people nearby land a legal-sized sturgeon. They took some pictures and were about to release the 63-incher when a family came running up and asked if they could keep it for dinner. It appeared to me that the catch-and-release fisherman felt compelled to give it to them, and he did. I could not tell if the sturgeon was properly tagged prior to the transfer of ownership because the family left pretty quickly. I thought I might offer one of my tags as I am also a catch-and-release fisherman who has never landed a sturgeon and would never need three tags, but I am wondering if this would be legal. Not knowing, I decided not to give up my tag. My question is, can someone donate a sturgeon tag to another fisherman? (Rob Grasso)

Answer:
No, that is not legal. According to Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Lt. Scott Melvin, all fishing licenses, tags, permits and report cards are issued to a specific user and the Fish and Game Code expressly prohibits their transfer to another person. To emphasize this, "non-transferable" precedes the words "report card" in both the general report card requirements and the white sturgeon regulations in the Freshwater Sport Fishing Regulations booklet.

Although the tags are removed from the card to tag a fish, sturgeon tags are uniquely correlated to one specific report card and may not be transferred to another user.