How many people have witnessed illegal fishing?

Question

I am a waterkeeper in Ireland and I would like to hear any of your reports on illegal fishing for a study I am doing. All reports must be genuine please and can come from anywhere, your help is greatly appreciated, cheers.

Answer 1

as much time on the water as I have been part of to not see poaching  or illegal taking of undersized protected species would have been near unbelievable. but I see fish taken under minimum size almost every time out and I see people taking more than the legal quantity per angler per day alomst every time out as well. So being conservative in that I fish 125 days a year and I see it alomst every time out lets just say 60 infractions a year conservatively.  

Answer 2

I see it almost every time I go fishing and it really makes me mad.  I call TPWD. Sometimes they come to investigate and sometimes they don't but I always report it.

The most common thing I see is people throwing a cast net or using a gill net.  They keep lots of undersized fish.  I also see a lot of people fishing who apparently don't know size limits and keep everything--especially undersized reds.  When you mention it, they ignore you.

I see people keeping small crabs--and not for bait

Most of the time it is non-English speaking persons and probably illegal aliens in this country (USA).

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Answer 3

Some examples I have seen:

Fly Fishing Catch and Release ONLY area: Well marked (a sign on every 5th tree) 2 fellows show up, rig up spinning outfits, drop worms

into the hole and yank trout up the bank. I yell to them that it is a

FF only area - they tell me they didn't see the signs (go figure).

I inform them the Warden makes frequent stops here on patrol.

How quickly they reeled up and left.

Classic example that many have seen: Salmon River in New York

during the Salmon run.....no-one is snagging them (yea right)

but many rigs consist of ridiculous heavy mono or spider wire,

extra stout rods w/ massive reels attached. Then

you see 5 split shot the size of softballs a foot away from a 2/0 hook

that is "baited" with a piece of sponge or a twist of yarn. The rig is

"tossed" upstream with a mighty "plunk" and then the so called

angler lifts the rod every few seconds on the drift.

Answer 4

I used to but I didnt know it was illegal then because I was like 11 and I used to just put them back

Answer 5

half the people that answered this question had the same excuse. "i did it when i was little" to me that is bull c**p. the people that say that are cowards. ill admit i still take fish illegal if i havent caught anything all day, and im not afraid to say it, or give a lame excuse

Answer 6

It is a big "problem" here in Ontario. I say it like that because almost anyone in the province has either fished out of season (whether they keep the fish or not), overshot a creel limit, or fished without a license at one time in their life. I am personally guilty of fishing out of season a good many times and fishing unlicensed once or twice. Some of it, like catch and release fishing out of season, isn't really bad to the environment but it is still a form of illegal fishing. The one thing we are starting to get a control on is the transport of invasive species like the Round Goby or Ruffe by live bait users.

Answer 7

i see it all the time...its mainly from noobs who dont really know what they are doing...and no offense to people but i see mexicans do it all the time..there are other races too but its just mainly mexicans...e.i no fishing liscense, too many poles, using illegal bait, too many fish, keeping under size fish, crossing over fences with a no tresspassing sign...and d**n...when they go fishing its like they bring the who fricken village...

Answer 8

The worst incident of illegal fishing that I have seen is on the cumberland river in Tennessee. There are a lot of vietnamese emigrants that live in this area and they were using nets to catch shad and herring. Cool, not an illegal practice. However sometimes they would catch bass, saugeye, striper, and other game fish in the nets and keep them. Not only this but they would keep fish that were below the state requirement for size and length. I don't know if they were doing it knowing that it was illegal or if they did not know or understand that what they were doing was wrong. I tried to advise them as politely as I could that they were fishing illegally but they did not understand what  I was trying to say.  Eventually I had to find a park officer to let him know what was going on down there. I guess this worked since from that day on they only took Shad and Herring by net and brought poles for the other species.

  As Chimp Dancer said in his responce, it is every ones responsability to ensure that our waters are fishable for generations to come.  Personally, I love the sport of fishing so much that I just started working on a biology degree so I can work in the conservation field when I retire from the army. Fishing has done so much for me that I have to give a little back.

Answer 9

I have done it before at brighton beach catching crabs in my sand castle bucket when I was about 6

Answer 10

most of these posts seem to be related to ignorance of sport fishing laws in America and people from other countries who are just trying to catch their supper? no that doesnt make it right but it is somewhat understandable. the law i break most often while fishing is to not wear my life jacket while operating my outboard motor and not having my motor kill switch cord attached to me. this probably wasnt the type answer you were looking for but most of the bass fishermen (with personal boats) that I know and fish with usually practise " catch and release". we all keep some to eat but we almost always put them back?  my Illegal fishing activities are only related to boating laws while fishing.

Answer 11

Alot of prime Trout and salmon rivers in scotland have been seriously damaged by eastern european immigrants ... they have been netting and taking all the fish regardless of size ! its a d**n shame and they should bugger off home if they cant respect our laws !

Answer 12

I saw a couple of Chinese people keeping bass out of season where I vacation in Canada. They owned a nearby restaurant. I also kept a bass out of season, but that doesn't count, since it was from a private pond.

EDIT- Okay, someone emailed me and told me it is still illegal to keep fish out of season, even from privately stocked waters (so I am guilty, I guess [come on I was 8]).

Answer 13

Oh, it's common to see it in America. Most do it when they are fishing a spot that it's not likely the Ranger will show up, but some will even do it right on the public spillway. I've never seen anyone fishing a spot that was illegal, even though I'm sure it happens, but I've seen a lot of rules broken before.

The most common one I've seen is too many poles or hooks per person, but I know a lot of people will use baby game fish as bait if they catch one. I've even done it myself a couple of times when it was really small. I won't do it if it's over a few inches though, because the bigger ones will have more of a fighting chance after a hook as been removed than the little bitty ones do. Plus I only do it with the panfish because those are the most common in the lake and have higher limits on them. I would never kill more than my limit on any fish, because then we wouldn't have any fish to catch if everyone did that. I know there are are a lot of people that over fish the species though anyway. Makes me wish the Ranger WOULD patrol more often...lol. $150 per fish over the limit would stop a lot of people from doing that...lol.

The one rule that is broken a lot that I REALLY hate is the littering. Man those lakes get nasty sometimes because people have no consideration for the environment.

Answer 14

I think I have seen this.  We have a river at the end of our farm track and i have watched two guys, one on the river and one on the bridge wearing dark glasses, looking into the river and giving the other guy instructions.  We get regular visits from the water baliffs so I think they got scared off. This is Scotland by the way.

Answer 15

I wouldn't say that illegal fishing is running rampant here in the USA but I have witnessed abuse to some degree. The taking of undersized fish and crabs by people seemingly unaware that there are regulations in place to help the species survive is what I see most often. Just informing these people why the regulations exist is often enough for most people to throw the fish and crabs back.  

Answer 16

I see it every time I go fishing and it's a damned shame that there are so many ignorant people who completely ruin the sport for everyone.  One report I have involves a Cuban Immigrant my way a few months back. He was catching and keeping all the mangrove snapper he caught regardless of size. He smiled about it, bragged that he never caught so many fish in Cuba, and he's going to catch as many as he can until he runs out of bait. There was about 5 people around and not one mentioned anything except give him a dirty look. I step up and tell him in Spanish that what he was doing was against the law. Unfortunately, he thought he was still in Cuba and went on catching fish. I walk up to his bucket and toss the entire thing in the water and now he's screaming and pissed off. I told him again that what he was doing was against the law ( I could care less about all that mess but no one is going to deplete my fishing hole!) and sure enough we get into an argument and  to my surprise, the 5 anglers who were there backed me up and we ran that guy off the spot. To this day we haven't seen him back there.

In short, every angler should treat each fishing spot as if they own it and let no poacher filter through! This guarantees you will have a fishing hole worth fishing. That's were I stand. ~good luck catchin'.