I was at the local tackle shop today and the owner and I got to talking about certified weights of fish. So heres the scenario I got to thinking about:

The nearest lake to fish locally is 30 miles away from the town I live. The tackle shop scale in the town I live is the ONLY certified Game and Fish scale around. Lets say for whatever reason I were to catch a state record record LMB out of the nearest lake(30 miles away from where I live) and I wanted to get it certified at the tackle shop in town. Game and Fish regulations prohibit the transport of live fish. I am a Catch and Release enthusiast though. So would I have to kill the fish in order to legally transport it to the scales?

If I were to transport it live, with the intention of releasing it,weigh it on the tackle shops scales and it ended up as a state record,what would happen when Game and Fish came to verify it...Would I end up getting the state record and a hefty fine or would they disqualify it because the fish was transported live?

The guy at the tackle shop said the scale at his shop was provided by the Arizona Game and Fish Dept and they maintain it once a year.

The thought of this scenario just made me wonder....Any thoughts?

There are a few scales which can be certified.  One of them is the Boga Scale.  If you bought one of them and had it certified you could weigh the fish and if it were record quality then take it for the record verification if you wanted to.

I doubt there would be a problem the FLW takes the fish to wal-mart to weight in, unless they have a permit or somthing.

The live fish transfer law is dependent on your intentions. It is illegal to transport live fish if it is intended to be released into another body of water. If your intention is to keep it alive so you can have it weighed and then release it back into the body of water in witch it came than that is not illegal.

If you catch one you need to call Game and Fish while you are on your way to the scale so they can meet you there. That way they can have the biologist there to verify species and take samples.