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[RyanB]

Today was ugly two Russian sounding guys took at least 20 trout between them.

Heh, I know exactly who you are talking about. 

At the same lake, two old guys chum with handfuls of shrimp every time I see them. 

Another guy chums with dog food. 

[dennyman]

If the other individual you are gathering information on, grabs you tell him they will be charged with assault. Then if he throws you in the water too bad, at least you warned him. Of course, what the assaulted individual has to do is to now make a call into the police and report the assault. If the "offender" is caught things change dramatically from a simple fishing offence to assaulting another person. There can be jail time, a criminal record, and the offender can be sued especially if there is either property, or physical injury to the person that was assaulted.

[The White Indian]

Definitely not asking any angler to be a cop on the water, but enforcement officers are encouraging all to phone in and report poachers because the number of calls they receive have been steadily dropping in recent years. Their success is highly dependent on our contribution. Phone the violations in. They may or may not get attended, depending on where the officers are at the time.

This would work if they ACTUALLY responded to reports made. Out of over a dozen poachers I reported last fall on the coquitlam, the only one apprehended and charged was a person who threatened me with a meat cleaver. He only ended up getting charged because the police had to be involved at that point. Numerous times I went out and chased off poachers netting chum out of the river after dark; this was after I called them in and gave fisherys precise details on where they were, how many, what method they were using to poach, etc and then waited a min of an hr to give fisherys time to go down first. That being said, I think we need to start lobbying DFO and MOE to prioritize fisheries enforcement and create a dedicated enforcement team solely for fisherys management. At this current point in time, if there is a call made about a nuisance bear or cougar; then any fisherys officers on duty in the area have to respond as well and put off any check-ups they had planned for local water bodys.

[shi man oh man]

Its a sad state of affairs, our fishery is basically self governed. I follow the Regs(I wish everyone did), but if a person chooses not to, there is only the slimest chance they will be punished for their offence. BC's fisheries are like a giant, unattended candy store, full of kids. Most of the kids won't steal, but the ones that do, will brazenly do it over and over again. Unfortunatley there are just alot of shitty humans on earth.

[silver ghost]

In short, the best thing we as anglers can do besides observing and reporting is writing letters to our MLA's and MP's asking for more Conservation Officers and DFO Fishery Officers.

While the issues are clear to us, our elected representatives are often swamped with a dozen issues on their plate which they know little about and don't have the time to research. Write a short letter outlining your concerns, and offer suggestions on how these could be addressed. It can be as short and simple as "Dear ____, I am frustrated that people are getting away with poaching due to a lack of enforcement officers. We need more in our area."

Remember, elected officials have a duty to respond to their constituents, and if enough people make noise about it, they will take it to parliament/legislature and table it for discussion.

There's always room on this forum to complain to others how much we like/don't like something. But writing/lobbying our government directly has a much better chance of improving the way things are, and probably takes the same time or less to write them than it did for me to type this.

[mko72]

I stand by my idea for vests that say "Ask me about my bait" for places with bait bans.  When someone asks you what bait you're using you say "None, because there's a bait ban" then they can't claim they didn't know.  Hook. Line. And sinker.