Wouldn't the Judge discipline them for perjury if they all lied under oath? I mean that's a pretty serious allegation![/
Ziggy - I think we're having a violent agreement here. Doesn't matter if it's a violation against the Fisheries Act or the Motor Vehicle Act. Once the ticket is issued, the charge is laid - without the influence of a Crown Prosecutor. Payment of the fine by the alleged violator is essentially a guilty plea and the case is closed. Filing a Notice of Dispute by the alleged violator kicks the case back to the Crown who must then decide whether to proceed to trial or withdraw the charge. Obviously in this case, the Crown felt there was sufficient evidence to proceed to trial. The Judge disagreed and dismissed the charge.
Regretably, this decision could have far reaching implications in that it may well severely limit the DFO's ability to charge anyone with fishing for salmon with barbed hooks unless they happen to find a fisher with a salmon with a barbed hook in its mouth. Hopefully, as I suggested in an earlier post, we can rely on people's ethics to abide by the intent and spirit of the barbless hook regulation and the damage will be restricted to a few unethical, unscrupulous folks who don't really give a **** about the resource - and who choose to go with the "I was fishing for cod" defence to flout the rules.
Unscrupulous , poaching , don't give a **** etc etc etc
Having been checked by DFO countless times (prob 2-3 per year ) pretty much always when working on the water over the past 27 years and never had ONE violation it's too funny seeing all this crap being posted here.
All my interactions with DFO on the water have been positive regardless of where these licence and gear checks have happened. I know several personally in the comox CAMPBELL river area and they know me.
We've talked about how they pick and choose which boats to board and check. Mostly those that they see any angler quickly pulling lines when they are spotted. We've all seen it enough times to know what I'm talking about.
Funny not one comment on that **** here , all Goody two shoes on here
I was fully aware of the dfo zodiac in the area on the day this incident happened. I watched them through my binoculars as did two of my clients. from where we were fishing
When they made there way over to us there was no rush to pull lines or any thought of doing so although it could have easily been done in the 25-30 minutes that it took them to arrive to check for licences and gear.
Like I said before. Not once did any of the three DFO officers ask what we were fishing for ONLY IF WE HAD ANY FISH ONBOARD.
The reply was yes we do have fish not only me but by the two male anglers onboard followed by showing them all what we had. The conversation for the next minute or two while my port side downrigger was coming up revolved around how slow the salmon fishing was that day for all boats they had checked. They heard the same from us.
The gear was checked , showing my gear , asked to bring up my other line , and immediately following that they confiscated both rods with gear broke away from the boat saying ONLY we will be back. Some 45 min later they returned , passed two tickets to me , took a photo and left. No point in arguing then as both tickets had already been written
If they had asked what I was fishing for and or asked for an explanation I porobaly wouldn't be writing this or maybe not who knows.
All three DFO officers had the exact same story in court. Failing to remember key details of the encounter many of which seemed odd as they reclalled many other small details that backed up their version of the incident.
The crowns postion was backed up by a previous charge laid in Nanaimo which resulted in a guilty verdict but it was obvious to me and the judge that the two cases were quite different. The crowns assumption that any angler can not fish in any tidal waters where salmon my be present was ridiculous and had huge implications for those anglers who fish for bottom fish with barbed hooks. For those at least this decision solidifies the fact that it is completely LEGAL no matter what your personal preference is.
Poaching , hardly , isn't that when you do something illegal like shoot a moose out of season , or retain ten chinooks in a day , or keep 500 prawns , no salmon were hooked , landed , retained with barbed hooks that day.
We were not ANYWHERE near either Kitty Coleman humps as stated falsely by the DFO officers. In fact I went into detail with the judge regarding that area and why we fish for salmon there. She asked me quite a few questions regarding that , how the tides affect bait , structure , depths we fish there , how deep the water is there. Etc etc.
I explained about large increase in recent years of pacific cod in the area and that anglers actually are targeting them now as they make half decent table fair.
None of the DFO officers were familiar with that area and knew nothing about the presence of pacific cod there and the fact that they are fished for there. They were based out of POWELL river and not one had ever fished in that area. So it doesn't surprise me they thought we were fishing at or near the "hump". They gave no evidence about either boats loaction other than " the kitty Coleman or hump area". I explained tonthe judge that the hump is about the size of several football fields and saying I was directly in that area was completely inaccurate.
The main DFO officer handling to "incident" was on the job for just four days I believe (Mott) and seemed to be left in charge of all the interactions that day. He took the gear , wrote the tickets etc. Stating that we were in a grouping of boats is not the case. Another story I found hard to believe and was left to argue that point.
Their zodiac was barely visible with 10x50 binoculars from our postion while they were checking the two or three other boats we could see. They passed within I'd say 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile of us while heading up that direction past the comox / POWELL river ferry terminal. They back tracked to check us quite a time after being up that way. The rest is history.