This year I am seeing more and more fisherman fillet there fish on the bank and packing out the fillets instead of carrying the whole fish out. I didnt see anything in the regs that this is illegal. There is a paragraph about wasting and mutilation. I always believed you are reuqired to pack out the fish for the following reasons:

A. Prove to the game warden its a hatchery fish/legal fish

B. So the state checkers can wave their metal detector over the head to retreive their wire