We Have Huge Issues - Smallmouth Poaching

[Coosa]

I'm trying to figure out how to send you the picture but I don't seem to be getting anywhere. I have no computer or Internet service at my home so my iPhone is all I have to work with

[ness]

Check your private messages

[Coosa]

I have a picture of a monster smallie that got gigged off of the gasconade near pointers creek. I always been scared to post it in fear that people would think it is me. Plus I don't know how to post pics from my phone.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14117092/Pics/IMG_0223.PNG

[Mitch f]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14117092/Pics/IMG_0223.PNG

Do you have pics with gig scars? This one looks pretty fresh. Some dude upstream from you stuck him and drifted downstream and died. Did you find him on the bottom?

[stlskyline]

I hate to see this. I'm not a huge smallmouth fisher as I lean towards trout, but if this is accurate this kind of thing ticks me off. I guess it's all about look at me.

[Coosa]

The picture is not of me. The Picture is the gigger. You can see the gig scar on the fishes back. The man in the picture showed my brother the pic after having a conversation about gigging. (I don't think he knew how much we smallmouth fished.). My brother got him to let him copy the pic then he sent it to me. This really upset me because this fish came off the gasconade at pointers creek acess which is where I do a lot of my fishing

[Mitch f]

My buddy and I found quite a few gig scars on the smallies at Rollins Ferry....same area.

[Mitch f]

Sounds like the Hawaiian sling boy plead not guilty at his day in court.

[hoglaw]

A not guilty plea is probably the best thing for those of you who are still following this or still in contact with law enforcement on it. A plea is entered at an arraignment. Had he pled guilty, the judge would have just decided what the sentence should be and gone about the rest of the cases on the docket that day. Now that he has pled not guilty, that means a prosecutor has it in his or her hands rather than just the judge. The prosecutor is the one who will decide what to offer on the case. I used to do some small town prosecution early in my career. I liked it because I really didn't have any oversight, and if I had a case that was a really bad one - one that I thought needed to be met with stiff punishment, then I had the ability to do that. I'd say, I'm offering X. If you don't like it, we can have a trial and I'll ask the judge for Y. The judge almost always took my recommendation on sentencing once we had a trial. The judge just assumed that if we had a trial and I was asking for more than he would normally hand out, then there was a good reason for it.

I say that only to say this. If you want to be heard on this, you probably can. You can call the prosecutor and tell him or her why this should be taken seriously. Be polite and respectful and remind him that you understand he has a lot of cases to deal with and many of them involve far worse offenses than a game and fish violation, but you feel like a message needs to be sent and that poaching old native fish goes on constantly and enforcement is very difficult. This is a rare case where one of the worst breeds of poachers got caught, and you feel like the punishment should be severe enough to deter others from doing it. I'd have hammered this guy as a prosecutor anyway, but I can tell you that when citizens of the town where I prosecuted called with concerns, I took them very seriously.

[fishinwrench]

The judge just assumed

I thought that Judges became "Judges" by leaving the "assuming" to those with far less authority.

Interesting lesson, Hoglaw. Thanks.