I'd like to report that I was asked for my license at Chain Bridge just a couple of weeks ago, on the Virginia side. The enforcement officer had been watching through binoculars from afar and wrote several tickets for possession of river herring, possession of shad, possession of striped bass, and lack of fishing licenses. The sad part, though, is that the officer seemed to know the individuals he was writing tickets for very well, and he acknowledged he had written them tickets just a few days prior. It seemed like they didn't care about getting the tickets and they wouldn't pay the fines. And, it seemed that the enforcement officer knew that writing a ticket was the best he could do, but if they didn't pay all he could do was write them another ticket.
-- He handed out several thousand dollars worth of fines to maybe 10 people and then everyone left. What didn't leave was their trash, beer cans, dead bait, hooks, extra line, broken rods, and dead striped bass they had taken illegally - those laid on the beaches, waiting to be swept away in the next high water event. It is so very, very disappointing - to the point that I've decided not to fish there anymore this season (we'll see how long that'll last). I've done my fair share of policing and trying to keep the beaches clean, but we are all fighting a losing battle. I wish there was more that we could do, but its up to the enforcement officers to drive the penalties home - maybe a pair of handcuffs would do the trick.
On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 2:26:53 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:
On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 2:26:53 PM UTC-4, TurbineBlade wrote:
It's a real problem. You can call and report these things, but it is 100% certain that nothing will happen.Since poachers and litterers don't show up on this forum to argue the merits of littering and poaching, we generally just deal a game of "the other fly fisherman is a jerk" for having dry hands, "tossing" fish, and using egg patterns. The latter is completely unimportant compared to the former, but you get more participation.Gene
On Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 1:54:45 PM UTC-4, chasthos wrote:Last week in search of shad I hiked down the Gulf Branch Trail off Military Road to the Potomac Heritage Trail on the Virginia side upstream from Fletcher's Cove. It was very disappointing to see piles of trash, bait containers, beer cans, etc...along the bank at every accessible point. There was also the stink of rotting fish and chicken bait. I thought shad were protected, and yet I saw one fisherman throwing a large net at them and others killing their catches. In view of their streamside behavior many of these fishermen are also probably lacking licenses too. Is there any enforcement of laws against littering and of fishing regulations?
http://www.tpfr.org
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