Possible Fishing Ban at Grenadier Pond

[MuskieBait]

(02-20-2013 11:53 AM)Sailor Joe Wrote:  How do you suppose binoculars are going to detect a fake or expired outdoors card from afar on a poacher? My eyes are not that good. If you are able to actually read the expiry date on the card or notice a fake card then I have to hand it to you, you are awesome! If you have eyes like me, you would have to make the effort anyway and approach the angler to visually confirm. So I don’t see how hanging your license around your neck prevents people from breaking the law in the first place. It’s just a nuisance to those who abide by the law.

Fake is harder to detect, but expired is easy. Every year, the license is printed on different colour paper. You can tell between a yellow sheet of paper from a blue sheet of paper.

Here's how it worked for California.

Each CO has his/her own patrol range. The CO regularly patrol the same areas. Anglers who frequent a certain areas may be checked by the CO a couple of times. The CO then recognizes these anglers, already confirmed they had the valid licenses, and from there onwards the CO only need a visual confirmation of the license for future patrol. If there were only a couple of "regulars" on the stretch of beach, the CO does not need to get out of his car, walk down to the beach, and check for licenses. The CO knows who is fishing (recognizing the regulars) and knows they already have valid license. So the CO only need to take out the binoculars, observe from afar for the displayed valid license, everything is OK, then the CO can move on to patrol another beach.

It is more time and resource efficient to operate this way.

In Ontario, a CO can patrol a busy stream quickly (eg. Bowmanville Creek during the salmon run) by scanning for a displayed licenses instead of approaching each angler one by one to check for licenses. They can cover more grounds quickly and it allows the CO to patrol more streams and cite more violations in one day that way...instead of spending 2 minutes with each angler waiting for them to dig the licenses out of their waders, backpack, wallet...etc.

It's all about efficient use of time...which then improved the use of the limited resources.

I'm not the one sitting there with binoculars...CO's are...and they have very good eyesight. Trust me...I've seen them on Simcoe with binoculars spying on people from afar for over limit catches. I've also been on Bay of Quinte where they were spying on us from afar...and as soon as we landed and released an out-of-season largemouth bass, they approached us within seconds.

I've bumped into CO's on the small streams before fly fishing for brook trout and when I talked to them, they had been spying on me to see if I was pinching down my barbs (barbless rules) and whether I was fishing with artificial lures or livebait (artificial only)...and I had no idea he was even there.

A lot of things happen in the background without you ever knowing. And they have much better eyesight than you give them credit for.

I'm just saying...it worked in California in the past...it can work here. I would much rather settle for a bit of hassle (ie, displaying the license by wearing it so it is visible) and improve the patrol efficiency and frequency of CO's...afterall, we are all in favour for more patrols and more enforcement...and if that little hassle can help the CO...I'm all for it.