What Happens when a warden gives you a ticket? I'll tell you

I got one so let me tell you. I haven’t seen this subject addressed on this site but it might be here somewhere.

In Sept 06 my longtime dive buddy and I finally got out for our first ab dive-rockfish comb trip of the year (better late than never).

I have always strictly abided by the F&G regs and pride myself on my honesty and sportsmanship so getting the ticket itself was just plain embarrassing as hell.   And it went downhill from there.

We launched out of Stillwater and paddled just a little south and dove for abs, got some nice ones, 2 of mine were 9+. We didn’t even put them below deck; just left them attached to the yak in the tankwell, and then started fishing. 

I knew the regs about filling out the cards immediately; I had the card, my license, and a pin, all on a lanyard tucked inside my suit.   

I (we) just plain forgot to fill’em out, this was an expensive and embarrassing lesson.

The DFG inflatable out of Bodega Bay came upon us and first thing they asked us if we’d filled out our cards, Oh S’’’’ was our response. 

The Wardens were less than friendly but reasonable, they said that from the looks of it they believed that we weren’t intentionally doing anything illegal but that they were going to write us up anyhow, mumbled something about “just couldn’t let us slide”.  Hey that’s OK we broke the rules.  They didn’t do anything else but write the ticket, didn’t check the abs, or any of our equipment, and since they were convinced it wasn’t intentional they left our abs with us. 

One point they did make and we listened was that whether we got any notice from the court or not, we were responsible to show up on the day noted on the citation.  The Sonoma county court couldn’t tell us even 1 day early if we were on the docket for that day. So my buddy and I both took a day off work and headed up. 

Once there we got a really bad feeling when we found our case on the docket, it was listed as

Me, and Him as Codefendants
                   vs.
The State of California.

Not sure why they lumped us together as each got separate citations, but it sure looked ugly up there on the wall.

So into the courtroom we go, Oh crap, we are now sitting with a variety of drug users, dealers, burglary suspects, victims and perps. of domestic violence etc, (and those are the ones or our side of the court), the shackled and guarded folks were sitting in the jury box, (guess it’s easier to keep’em outta trouble that way).

There were 2 other people called before us with DFG infractions, one like ours and the other for an over limits of rockfish, the judge actually let the over limit of rockfish go as a misunderstanding as the guy’s buddy showed up with him and explained the he had left his fish with his buddy and walked back to camp and that’s why the guy had so many fish when the warden showed up.  As told it sounded pretty reasonable so the judge dropped the charges. 

Good news so far I thought,

Then the other guy with failure to fill out the card is called, hmmmm, the judge didn’t say much, except he offered to drop the charges if the guy would make a donation of $250 dollars to SCAN. 

When it was our turn the judge asked the DA if he had any other info on us and the DA said no and the judge said that was good for us but he made a couple of remarks that made it sound like we had done it intentionally, so I was ready to speak up as I’m known to do, however we got the same offer, so with the offer to drop the charges (clean record) on the table we just shut up and paid up. 

So why am I putting this out there?  Hoping you all are smarter than me,,,,, I used to be pretty careless about displaying my license, and twice (over 20 years) I even lost it during a trip (long drive/long paddle) and kept fishing/diving thinking man I worked hard to get here and that if I did get a ticket I’d just show up with a replacement and be OK.

Bottom line DFG citations of any kind are allot more serious than a traffic ticket, I’d heard that word of mouth but never experienced it first hand.  I might miss out on some diving/fishing but the next time I lose my license or even forget to carry a pen, that’s it “not gonna do it”. 

P.S. the people we’ve known for years really got a kick outta all this because of our reputation for so being so straight-up and honest. A couple of doctored pictures showed up at work with us in prison stripes, funny now but not forgotten. 

Oh yeah and I did some internet research into SCANs activities, I dug pretty deep and believe it or not when the DFG didn’t have the money to put new outboards on that very inflatable, SCAN coughed up a significant portion of the money needed, I noticed as I was sitting there waiting for my ticket the boat had 2 nice new Honda’s on it, now I know who paid for them.

While I’m absolutely in favor of vigorous enforcement of DFG regs, I’m not sure how I feel about private funds being used.  There’s allot of that going on now…..

Good story, Dell.  It's a hard lesson to learn - I got lucky and was warned once when I came ashore with one ab in my yak and had left my license in the truck.  I think it had to do with the warden knowing of me from past checks where I never had a limit of fish or abs.  I'm very careful about it now and always have my license and a pen in my waterproof bag out on the water with me when I plan to take an ab.  I heard that next year there'll be tags that go along with the punchcard and right when you take an ab you'll be required to slip the tag through a vent hole and afix it to the ab shell...  it's getting a little trippy!  I hope it helps enforcement and reasonable contacts by DFG.

Eric

$125 bucks per AB, OUCH!!!  You took it well.

$125 bucks per AB, OUCH!!!  You took it well.

Word on the street is that they sell for more than that.............................KIDDING!!!!

Thank you for sharing your story.  It's good stuff to know.  We're all human and we all make honest mistakes.

I get checked by the man a lot when I fish or hunt -- more than most guys I know.  Perhaps, it's because I'm Asian.
At least I know my fishing and hunting license money is well spent on enforcement.

I get checked by the man a lot when I fish or hunt -- more than most guys I know.  Perhaps, it's because I'm Asian.

I wouldn't be surprised. I'm being serious here and I don't want to come off as being racist but lets be honest, most of the time (I know this is a generalization) when I've heard about DFG stings it's Asian people getting busted. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the DFG was using racial profiling when it comes to checking people out. I would like to point out that I am a Rican. On one occasion I got scrutinized by the same officer twice in one day.

FF

I'm Caucasian Scotch-Irish-Welsh.
My wife is Japanese.
Her two sons are American with a Japanese-Scoth-Irish handsomeness.
My beautiful intelligent daughter-in-law is from China.
Racial profiling really hurts when we go fishing, just for looking "oriental".

What I try to do is inform the local Game Wardens personally a little before we go out.

That way we are not wasting anyones' energy or taxpayer money and they can go catch the real poachers of any races/creeds instead of just picking on us.

Sad to say but I deal with this every day, just so we as a good decent American family can simply enjoy fishing together.   Happy holidays.

Hi Matt:

         
 When I was living in Albion, I would clean my Abs on shore At Van Damm and throw the guts to the Gulls. "Carrot Top" a DFG Warden reamed me a new A-hole. I got off with a warning and setup a cleaning station at Home where, I would feed the vultures instread.
 
                                                             Ernie

Many years ago  a group (with 3 or 4 beginners) went ab diving. Everything went well with the until we reached the trucks...... the "new to the rules group" put all their abs in one bucket for transport........We informed them that would/could be considered one possession and it was a bad idea. Sure enough a warden checked the bucket ...told them the same thing and then produced an undersized ab. Only one ticket was issued for the person who drew the short straw. If I remember correctly the officer was only giving the group a warning until the undersize ab discovery.   

Stereotyping, racial profiling is not cool, but unfortunately it can't be ignored.  The fact is that most of the poachers I've seen have been new Asian immigrants who could care less about the law.  I hope they all get busted and deported!

I think abalone tags would be great, as long as we don't have to write on them...  I'd much rather affix a zip-tie like tag than be out there trying to get a pen to work.

Usually I paddle in and fill out my punchcard just offshore of the landing (where it's calmer and I've had a chance to dry a bit).  Guess that's still not good enough.  Guess I should fill it out before hand.

Good story, Dell.  It's a hard lesson to learn - I got lucky and was warned once when I came ashore with one ab in my yak and had left my license in the truck.  I think it had to do with the warden knowing of me from past checks where I never had a limit of fish or abs.  I'm very careful about it now and always have my license and a pen in my waterproof bag out on the water with me when I plan to take an ab.  I heard that next year there'll be tags that go along with the punchcard and right when you take an ab you'll be required to slip the tag through a vent hole and afix it to the ab shell...  it's getting a little trippy!  I hope it helps enforcement and reasonable contacts by DFG.

Eric

I don't have the reg in front of me at the moment, but I believe "immediately" is in the sentence about filling out the card and that's what they mean.  I blew it, just got excited about fishing and forgot.

As far as tags go I think it's a great idea, the actually tagging rules are a bit much. However, this will make poaching that much harder.  and the Ab population does need all the protection it can get right now.

In case you haven't noticed there are very few juvenile abs out there, the DFG keeps reducing the take to allow us to still take a few while at the same time not depleting the adult spawning population. Seems abs only have good spawning success every 7-10 years or so and they are way overdue. So the regs are set up to keep a "critical mass" of spawning adults around until we can get another good spawning year.

Stereotyping, racial profiling is not cool, but unfortunately it can't be ignored.  The fact is that most of the poachers I've seen have been new Asian immigrants who could care less about the law.  I hope they all get busted and deported!

 Don't forget the Commerical guys! These Guys were really dumb. A Uni Boat
that stays too long without bringing in a catch is asking to be checked.
                                                                                         Ernie

Abalone poachers sent to prison
Judge gives fishermen 2 years behind bars and lifetime ban on fishing
July 1, 2004

By Glenda Anderson
The Santa Rosa Press Democrat

A Mendocino County judge on Wednesday forever banned two Southern California men from fishing, seized their boat and sent them to prison for being caught with the largest single illegal abalone haul in California in 15 years.

Judge David Nelson told the men he was sending them to prison "to let others know this is not something they should do."

Kurt Allen Ward, 43, and Joshua Holt, 34, both commercial fishermen from San Ysidro, were each sentenced to two years in prison. Ward's boat and fishing gear were forfeited and he was fined $40,000. Holt was fined $20,000. Neither man can fish again, either commercially or for recreation.

State Fish and Game officials arrested the men with 468 red abalone May 20 when they landed Ward's urchin boat, "Blind Strike," at the Albion River Campground.
                                                                                  Ernie

 

Poaching=bad
Racial Profiling=Take your pick and you can be next.
Kayaks and fish=good.
See you on the water.