To all the Potheads
Not sure if this should be a heads up for all "potheads" - Cray Potters, but I just read the rules and I cannot ascertain what rules I broke.
I usually drop my pots at Rottnest, but this year I wanted to get amongst the whites. As my parents live right next to the boat ramp, it was ideal to leave my boat there and go with my old man to check the pots.
Anyway, long story short, i purchased my dad a license on the way to checking the pots as i had set two of my own pots few days back. As luck had it, first pot we pulled 25 legals.
Beauty, kept 16 of the biggest and returned the rest in the water. Didn't even bother checking the other one as it was a super lumpy and windy out there and i had to go to work.
Returned to the boat ramp, got checked by fisheries, showed him my license and my dads. Told him we only checked one pot and had 25 ( being boastful). He asked if my dad had pots out there and i said no, i just got him the license this morning on the way out.
He then told me that i was not allowed to do that, and he had to have pots in the water if he wanted his 8. Now i was a bit confused and perplexed, i admit didn't read the brochure throughly, so i thought i was in the the wrong...FECK.
With all the boaters returning, here two Asian guys with the fisheries doing a bust, i was rather embrassed.
anyway, details taken down, and was advised that the infringement would be around $400, took 8 of the crays back and threw them back in the water...
anyway, spoke to local fishing store and they weren't aware either, reading the brochure they talk about a boat limit and possession limit, no more than 2 pots per license but nothing about what i have been pinged for.
im not claiming to be an expert manner, i could be wrong still, can someone englighten me? if i am wrong, just heads up if you want to take some friends out with licenses and decide to buy on the day, coz 8 crays is easily worth more then $40, just quietly.
dawsy
Posts: 65
Date Joined: 16/12/14
I remember being on a beach
I remember being on a beach with fisheries giving a fine to a bloke. He said his grandmother caught the rest. Grandma was sitting on the beach fully clothed, dry as a bone.
The officer said she had to actively catch the Abalone. Sitting on the beach didnt count.
Hairyone
Posts: 246
Date Joined: 26/12/09
Are you allowed to have two
Are you allowed to have two licence numbers on your float???
If my son and I own a few pots between us, both have licences and lable them with both licence numbers can either of us pull them and take 8 crays if one person goes out and 16 if we both go?
Jaaayoo
Posts: 11
Date Joined: 16/03/14
And it gets worse. Straight
And it gets worse. Straight from fisheries mouth last week at Two Rocks. Only 8 crays can come from your pots at a time so even with 2 on board and 4 pots in the water you're not allowed to bag by pulling just one or two pots. Excess crays can be returned to the water still in the pot for the next pull. I made the mistake of saying we were bagging in one pot, no fine but a tune up on the regs.
Also had the nervous return to ramp with 5 pots after losing one for 4 days and then finding it on the last day after replacing it a couple of days earlier. Wonder how that one would've gone down. Not to mention I'd been unknowingly fishing with 3 pots within an area for 3 days.
outdoinit
Posts: 1009
Date Joined: 05/10/12
Mate I feel sorry for you getting busted when
you thought you were doing the right thing.. Yes it is a can of worms.. But can say I hear of people pulling just 2 pots for their boat / bag limit of 24 Crays (3 fishers onboard) all the time while the whites are running.. Especially the old Pros that are now rec fishing..
Happens all the time up here..
I've spent half my life fishing.. The other half I have wasted..