I agree with above, if you would've told the guy he foul hooked the fish you'd be in the right, no matter what he did.

Riverliver, now you bring up an interesting point. It says in the lawbook if the fish is hooked in front of the gillplate then it's a legal fish. That's probably what the officer meant. I had same thing happen to me a few years back. I always keep a set of rules with me in the boat. Officer corraborated the same thing (my buddy had just hooked the fish right on the corner of the mouth on the outside so hook wasn't directly in mouth). I haven't double checked the regs, but it shouldn't have changed. I get the rule changes each year from the WDFW so since it hasn't been in there I assume it's the same.

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