The confusion is understandable. I talked with head legal beagle for WDFW Evan Jacoby a few weeks back on this same issue.

There are two sets of rules: one for salt and one for fresh.


In Saltwater it is legal to keep a fish that is snagged as long as the fish was not intentionally snagged...Warden discretion as to what was intentional.

In Freshwater the fish must have voluntarily taken the "hook" into its mouth. The old thought of anything in front of the gillplates is gone.

Jim