friend of mine just flushed 10K down the toilet

[97guns]

more of a friend to my brother, he went abalone fishing and got busted, i guess fish and game are real sticklers about this stuff. he wasn't poaching, he was in the boat while his buddy free dove for them, his buddy would bring them up and go back down, they were over their limit because his friend was doing all the fishing.

my friend tried saying they were not over limit because he had caught his own but they were being watched the whole time and fish/game never seen my buddy go into the water.

after lawyer fees, court fees, fines and other expenses he is out over 10K and they want to pull his hunting fishing license for 3 years, he just signed on with a duck club for 3K

[4theluvofgold]

Yeah they are sticklers. Up here in Alaska they are sticklers as well. I had a line caught. I was trying to tug it out. A trooper tries to come and write me a citation for snagging. I had to hand him the pole and say "I would like to see you snag something right now." He pulled and realized I was caught on something.

I had friends getting their limits for the subsistence family up here. Because they were all in the same container and not separated they tried to do the same thing to them as your friend. Count them on one.

I wish him luck.

[97guns]

I wish him luck.

he is lucky in that they did not confiscate his boat, they also want him to serve 60 hours of community service OR 4 days in jail.

[GREENBACK]

more of a friend to my brother, he went abalone fishing and got busted, i guess fish and game are real sticklers about this stuff. he wasn't poaching, he was in the boat while his buddy free dove for them, his buddy would bring them up and go back down, they were over their limit because his friend was doing all the fishing.

my friend tried saying they were not over limit because he had caught his own but they were being watched the whole time and fish/game never seen my buddy go into the water.

after lawyer fees, court fees, fines and other expenses he is out over 10K and they want to pull his hunting fishing license for 3 years, he just signed on with a duck club for 3K

Pretty simple case of overbagging. Was the plan for one guy to catch two limits and claim they were both fishing? That might work if no one is watching, otherwise, you're screwed.

[4theluvofgold]

One guy who is a handicap vet would take care of top watch and do all the duties at the table from his wheel chair while the other would dive. They would each get their share, I would like to see the game people take that one on cause they would have to dodge my fury.

[Mesem]

more of a friend to my brother, he went abalone fishing and got busted, i guess fish and game are real sticklers about this stuff. he wasn't poaching, he was in the boat while his buddy free dove for them, his buddy would bring them up and go back down, they were over their limit because his friend was doing all the fishing.

my friend tried saying they were not over limit because he had caught his own but they were being watched the whole time and fish/game never seen my buddy go into the water.

after lawyer fees, court fees, fines and other expenses he is out over 10K and they want to pull his hunting fishing license for 3 years, he just signed on with a duck club for 3K

I didn't know overfishing was fined so much...wow.

[QuarterMillionMan]

I have my own story about being fined by the California fish & game. Just a little bit of preface, prior to moving to Los Angeles I lived in Hawaii where shoreline fishing doesn't require any fishing license. Anyways, I was fishing on a rock jetty that protrudes from the shoreline into the ocean about 50 yards near LAX airport, along with about 5 other strangers. The game wardens shows up and asks all of us for our fishing license. No one had a license so they issued everyone a citation (one guy even was handcuffed probably for an outstanding warrant of some kind). The fine, $585. To make matters worse none of us caught a single fish. I now buy a one-year license for $50. By the way I chose to go to court showing the judge my license purchased after the citation. The judge was nice and reduced my fine to $185. That was an expensive lesson learned for me.

[bjl584]

He probably would have gotten less of a fine if he robbed a convenience store.

[disneysteve]

my friend tried saying they were not over limit because he had caught his own but they were being watched the whole time and fish/game never seen my buddy go into the water.

Sounds to me like he knew they were breaking the law. If that's the case, I don't see a problem here. He deserves every penny of that fine.

[rennigade]

When I used to hunt white tail deer in PA...all of us would have a 1 buck license and 1 doe license. A lot of times one person would shoot 2 deer at a time, both could be doe, both could be buck. We would just have a friend claim the deer to use up his doe/buck tag. What we used to do sounds a lot like what your friends were doing. I never really thought about that being illegal.

Im a hunter so I can relate...I just dont see the problem..whether one person was doing the work or not..as long as they both werent over their limit, I personally do not see a problem.

[disneysteve]

Im a hunter so I can relate...I just dont see the problem..whether one person was doing the work or not..as long as they both werent over their limit, I personally do not see a problem.

I'm not a hunter so I can't relate but the two situations don't sound the same to me. In your case, rennigade, you were all out there actively hunting. In the case OP describes, one person was actively fishing and the other wasn't doing anything at all. What if there were 10 people on the boat with one doing all the fishing and the rest partying? Would it be okay to bring in 10 times the limit?

[GREENBACK]

When I used to hunt white tail deer in PA...all of us would have a 1 buck license and 1 doe license. A lot of times one person would shoot 2 deer at a time, both could be doe, both could be buck. We would just have a friend claim the deer to use up his doe/buck tag. What we used to do sounds a lot like what your friends were doing. I never really thought about that being illegal.

Im a hunter so I can relate...I just dont see the problem..whether one person was doing the work or not..as long as they both werent over their limit, I personally do not see a problem.

It's an issue of fairness to other hunters. What's to stop a person from filling tags for everyone not competent enough to harvest their own game. Daily bag limits are meant to apply to individuals in most places. It's illegal and unethical(IMO)to take more than your personal limit even if another person has an unfilled quota to meet.

[rennigade]

I'm not a hunter so I can't relate but the two situations don't sound the same to me. In your case, rennigade, you were all out there actively hunting. In the case OP describes, one person was actively fishing and the other wasn't doing anything at all. What if there were 10 people on the boat with one doing all the fishing and the rest partying? Would it be okay to bring in 10 times the limit?

I understand what you're saying. Im not familiar with abolone fishing...but it sounds like you dive down and pick up the abalone with your hand? I just dont see what makes it right/wrong for 1 person to dive down, pick up the abalone, and hand it to his friend in the boat so his friend can claim it. I just dont see how its any better for the friend to jump in and get them himself? For some reason its just really odd to me.

To answer your question about bringing in 10x the limit...I do think its ok. If everyone in the boat jumped in and grabbed the abalone themselves...what has changed in this scenario? The only thing different is that everyone participated, but the outcome is ultimately the same. All of those fish are gone from the sea. Everyone has their limit for the day. Nothing else has changed besides different hands touching the fish at the bottom of the water.

[rennigade]

It's an issue of fairness to other hunters. What's to stop a person from filling tags for everyone not competent enough to harvest their own game. Daily bag limits are meant to apply to individuals in most places. It's illegal and unethical(IMO)to take more than your personal limit even if another person has an unfilled quota to meet.

If that means that less lead is flying in the air from those hunters not competent enough to kill their own game then it may be beneficial to everyone...hunters in the woods and possibly houses that are within reach. But then again those people should not be in the woods to begin with.

Like I said we never thought of it as some sneaky thing that was illegal...for us it was just more meat on the table.

I do see how it could be unfair to other hunters though.

[BuckyBadger]

I've be a part of a similar thing while going pheasant hunting in the Dakotas. The hunt organizer will bring along a handful of relatives, with guns, on the day's hunt. They will occasionally shoot if they have a good shot and the paying customers haven't taken a bird down. But their main goal is to allow the paying customers to shoot more birds, and to not make everyone keep count of their birds. As the day progresses, they do count the birds and as the group gets near its limit, we do start counting.

This is done on stocked land, so there's no risk of decimating a natural population, however, and limits are quite high anyway, so it doesn't bother me. We just consider it more of a "group" limit than an individual one.

YMMV, of course.