Ticketed For Paddlefish Out Of Season

[Mitch f]

http://s781.photobucket.com/albums/yy91/FishinCricket/fishing%20pics/?action=view&current=633490c5.jpg

Fun stuff...

I am actually in total agreeance with this... (not that my opinion is the end all be all authority or anything)

Duly Noted

[plexlove]

I think the judge will have the last say on that. I don't want to act as though I can read minds, but I suspect the picture taking violated the agents idea of Immediately.

Yes i agree, it obviously did violate his "idea" of immediately...but thats the thing, the law is not based upon officers

"ideas" of what is right or wrong, it is based upon written law! If we want to get technical when i realized i had snagged a spoonbill i should have not even wasted time unhooking the thing and just threw my whole rod in the water...that is immediately!!

Point is, i had it out of the water unhooking it, held it up and a girl snapped a photo and i tossed it straight back in the water...the extra 30 seconds tops that it took to take a photo could not be considered a breach of the "immediately" rule.

They need to set a specific time limit on immediately or have specifications on it, like "no photos" "only so far from the water" "cant pick it up" etc... but even then there will be curcumstances in which those do not apply!

If the ability for an officer to ticket was based upon what he "thought" was going on, then he could ticket anyone for any reason, that is why laws are written!

My ticket reads that i was trying to take these fish, which was not the case.... Also someone made a real good point, why did they set and watch me for so long before saying something? They just wanted the money, not to help the fish!

That would be like a police officer watching a guy rob a bank and waiting until he left to catch him! Thats just stupid, if they witness a crime or suspect one is going to happen, they are bound by law to stop it or at least go and talk to the "suspect" and make sure him/her knows the law.

[oneshot]

Seen a woman Agent one time,she would Sunbath watching people catch Bass,if they caught a Underleight one and didn't turn it back fast enough she would write them a Ticket.

oneshot

[plexlove]

Seen a woman Agent one time,she would Sunbath watching people catch Bass,if they caught a Underleight one and didn't turn it back fast enough she would write them a Ticket.

oneshot

lol, Glad to see our tax payer dollars goin to good use, paying for them to get a sun tan!

[rangerman]

The agents/prosecutor are going to have to show prove beyond reasonable doubt of taking/attempting to take. If there is any shadow of a doubt, you should be good. Should be able to beat it. From a special insight........

[Justin Spencer]

I'd do what Gavin said and just pay the thing and move on.

Bullbutter! If you were doing what you thought was perfectly legal my guess (just from seeing your posts) is that you would fight it as if your life depended on it. The hard part is taking off work to fight the thing, as it probably ends up costing more to win than if you just paid the thing considering lost wages, they can't ever settle a case in one appearance, that's why I would contact the prosecutor directly.

[Tim Smith]

lol, Glad to see our tax payer dollars goin to good use, paying for them to get a sun tan!

Are you kidding? That officer is about as smart as it gets. By doing that she did her job far better than she would have otherwise and ended up making the state money and busting way more filthy rotten poachers who didn't think it was possible they were being watched. More power to her!

Put 'em all in bikinis and suntan lotion if it works....

...although there might need to be a minimum requirement for aesthetics.

[eric1978]

Bullbutter! If you were doing what you thought was perfectly legal my guess (just from seeing your posts) is that you would fight it as if your life depended on it.

Justin, that's the problem...I'm not so sure it was perfectly legal. That's why I said I see both sides, in which case, if it were my ticket, I would just pay it and be done with it. I'm sure it's hard for the OP to see it from someone else's "objective" perspective, since if what he says is true, he KNOWS that he was fishing legally and snagging the paddlefish was an incidental, accidental, and therefore legal bycatch...but no one else can know that for sure, so fighting the ticket would be a real PITA and not worth the time, effort or money, especially considering he has the picture thing he'd have to deal with to boot.

I'm not sure which posts you're referencing that makes you think I'd fight a ticket if I thought I was perfectly legal (wouldn't everyone?), but if it's the Shoal Creek thread you're talking about, then that's a false equivalence because the floaters on Shoal Creek were perfectly legal in black and white until the MO Supreme Court changes the precedent. The OP here may have been perfectly legal, but not so obviously legal. Not sure if that makes sense...? But I digress...

Anywho, someone earlier mentioned going and speaking with the Prosecuting Attorney and explaining his side of the story. I probably would do that first, since it's possible he may drop the charge. But if that didn't work, it'd be the end of the fight for me. But that's me.

[Tim Smith]

If what JD said in the other thread is true (and he's generally pretty good with facts when they're not associated with politics), there isn't a gar snagging season and there's more than just a paddlefish by-catch issue on the table here.

Plex, you might be able shed this ticket, but it got issued because you weren't respecting the spirit of the law. There isn't a "gar snagging season" as far as the law is concerned. There's just a run-up to paddlefish season. Just because you put a steel leader on your snagging gear, doesn't mean you're targeting gar. You were out there to rip into whatever was interesting to snag and as your posts demonstrate you were plenty happy it was paddlefish.

Once it was clear you were on the paddlefish, the responsible thing to do was to move down the bank and lay off the paddlefish....and you didn't. I can just about guarantee that the CO decided you were jumping the paddlefish season. Four was enough to show you were on a paddlefish concentration and you weren't making any attempts to avoid them. You didn't move. You didn't adjust. You just kept hammering the spoonbills.

The snagging season exists to give the fish some periods of time to spawn with low stress when they aren't being harrassed. Those long fights build up lactic acid and can kill the fish with latent stress. You won't see it because it takes a few days, but yes it can kill them. Angling stress also causes the fish to pull lipids out of their egg masses and results in larvae with poorer condition and lower survival in the year class. If the stress is great enough they can even abandon the spawn altogther. There may not be much natural reproduction in Missouri right now, but it doesn't make much sense to batter the little bit that's there even further. Paddlefish are in trouble, partially because they can't migrate upstream at dams like the one where you were snagging them.

Even if you are legally right, you were ethically wrong. It would be nice to see you admit that you should have backed off that spot and found another spot to fish. If people would do that kind of stuff on their own, we wouldn't have a tenth of the laws we have now.

[jdmidwest]

If what JD said in the other thread is true (and he's generally pretty good with facts when they're not associated with politics), there isn't a gar snagging season and there's more than just a paddlefish by-catch issue on the table here.

Plex, you might be able shed this ticket, but it got issued because you weren't respecting the spirit of the law. There isn't a "gar snagging season" as far as the law is concerned. There's just a run-up to paddlefish season. Just because you put a steel leader on your snagging gear, doesn't mean you're targeting gar. You were out there to rip into whatever was interesting to snag and as your posts demonstrate you were plenty happy it was paddlefish.

Once it was clear you were on the paddlefish, the responsible thing to do was to move down the bank and lay off the paddlefish....and you didn't. I can just about guarantee that the CO decided you were jumping the paddlefish season. Four was enough to show you were on a paddlefish concentration and you weren't making any attempts to avoid them. You didn't move. You didn't adjust. You just kept hammering the spoonbills.

The snagging season exists to give the fish some periods of time to spawn with low stress when they aren't being harrassed. Those long fights build up lactic acid and can kill the fish with latent stress. You won't see it because it takes a few days, but yes it can kill them. Angling stress also causes the fish to pull lipids out of their egg masses and results in larvae with poorer condition and lower survival in the year class. If the stress is great enough they can even abandon the spawn altogther. There may not be much natural reproduction in Missouri right now, but it doesn't make much sense to batter the little bit that's there even further. Paddlefish are in trouble, partially because they can't migrate upstream at dams like the one where you were snagging them.

Even if you are legally right, you were ethically wrong. It would be nice to see you admit that you should have backed off that spot and found another spot to fish. If people would do that kind of stuff on their own, we wouldn't have a tenth of the laws we have now.

Sorry there Tim, did not know what you were fishing for exactly on the other thread. A quick search of the MDC website brings up the seasons for snagging, bow fishing, and atlatls methods of fishing. Since I have not pursued rough fish in 30 some years other than pole and line, I was not up on the regs. Here is a link.

MO Non Game Fishing Regs