I am now a law breaker...

[Wacenturion]

Cheap ticket....apparently looking for another rock in the box.  As someone already said just a verbal warning and send you go on your way would have been sufficient.  If you can't make the court date which you would probably beat, at least send a letter to several places.....from the Governor, and your local state senator and rep as well as the Director of WDFW, explaining your thoughts and displeasure of ruining an outing with your kids.  Absolute crap..........with all that goes on on that river, agents are writing you up for that....unbelievable!

[yelp]

My son is 7 and I took him Salmon Fishing this year.  Since he is under 15 he isn't required to have a fishing license but is required to have a punchcard.  I picked up a punchcard going through the WILD system (he now has a Wild ID) and my 7 year old is now legal to catch fish. What father doesn't set the hook for a kid once in a while? I guess you let them try and set it? I would take it to court and fight it.  Good luck and hope the next trip is better.

[BigGoonTuna]

i know that my dad would have gotten more than a few tickets over the years if this had been enforced around us.  when i was a little kid he'd even hand off steelhead without a second thought.

[quacker whacker]

   fight it!

[MuleySniper]

Id try to fight it. Make sure to request the officer appears in court. Hopefully you can beat it AND waste some of his time. The majority of gamies prefer writing easy tickets like parking violations anyway so its not like he will be out chasing poachers.
MS

[zackmioli]

thats ridiculous. like was said earlier he should have taken you aside like he did and just informed you. a ticket in that instance seems unnecessary.

[Dustin07]

There are way worse things fishermen have been doing. Especially lately in the rivers. I watched one guy bring in fish after fish. His kids sat on the shoreline and did not reel in a single one, yet he kept bringing them in and throwing them in the kids baskets. I could swear he had more fish then even the three of them would have been able to keep on a legal limit.

Mason County has a bad reputation for wdfw. I'm not sure if it's worth fighting for THIS ticket, but I think generally speaking its worth bringing up that this ISSUE in particular is a BS law.


it is worth writing a letter to the WDFW office. IMO-

[Wenatcheejay]

Good thing the Gamie took such a dangerous poacher off the waters. 

[swanny]

Sorry to hear about the ticket, that is really lame.

Seems like they should be enforcing catch limit's or daily limit's in my mind. Don't these apply to the rivers? I have seen guys counting and catching 30+ fish in an outing and no tickets issued. Or do I interpret this rule incorrectly?

[Gamie]

Interesting Post,

You should go to court if it happened just exactly the way you described it here.  It would be the best thing to help resolve the strong feelings of innocence you obviously have, and your kids would know that justice was served in the end. Their perceptions are more important than you realize at this young age. Otherwise you'll harbor those ill feelings and always wish you had gone to court.  And folks here would never get to see how these kinds of stories eventually turn out.  It doesn't do any good to say the game warden was wrong, and I should have gone to court later when it's too late.     

That way to, the game warden could tell his version of what happened, and you could relay what he tells the court in his explanation of what happened back to the board so we could all better understand the reason for his actions.  There are always two sides to a story.  You’re innocent until proven guilty.  Let the judge decide.

Just my suggestion,

[kbyers]

You do need to let the judge decide on this one.  Another scenario for you to consider, a fishing guide takes out 3 clients on a salmon trip and fishes 4 rods.  The guides rod off a down rigger gets hit, he grabs the rod, pops the clip and fish on.  Then he hands the rod off to one of the clients.  I am not saying that this is wrong, a lot of my friends are guides, but how does this fit into the law the you were cited for.  Just out of curiosity, what RCW was cited on the citation?

[Rob]

This is what really frustrates me.  With all the real issues we face, poaching, exceeding limits, and a litany of other issues, a Enforcement takes time out of their day to ticket something like this.

I respect our LE folks and generally support what they do.  It is a tough thankless job.  But this is silliness.

I would fight this to my dying day.  I would hire a lawyer if need be.  If I were a lawyer I would represent you for free!

Having not read the laws specifically I may be wrong, but I am assuming this falls into the grey area of catching and landing a fish.   I hear of folks hooking large fish that entail a 30 to 60 min fight handing the fish off to another person to fight for a while.  Is that also illegal in WA?  What about dowriggers setting the hook?

The consequences to this are more than just an irritating fine.  If you ever decide to go for a master hunter or some similar program in the future, you could end up being culled from the program do to this infraction.  I would not want it on my record.

[bowtech721]

i know that my dad would have gotten more than a few tickets over the years if this had been enforced around us.  when i was a little kid he'd even hand off steelhead without a second thought.

[Hunterman]

Looks like I'm a law breaker too, and will be.. Take it to court and make sure the warden shows up...Let a warden give me a ticket for that,,then give me another one for littering...Infact I would have made him call the local police, and show me the RCW on this!!! Just plain BS...

Hunterman(Tony)

[Dustin07]

Just out of curiosity, what RCW was cited on the citation?

actually, I'd like to see this too.