Media release from Eastern Fish & Game

Cunning Trick to Get Off Hook Failing, says Fish & Game

Anglers caught fishing without a licence - who try a cunning trick to get off the hook – simply aren’t succeeding.

That is the message from Eastern Region Fish & Game Regional Compliance Officer, Anthony van Dorp, after a recent case before the Rotorua District Court.

The man in his thirties tried to “get off the hook,” in the Judge’s words, after he was caught trolling on Lake Rotorua in January. He told Fish & Game officers his son had bought a licence for him but he didn’t have it with him.

Issued with an infringement notice, he went and bought a 24-hour fishing licence which he asked to have backdated to 8am that day. He then presented the licence to Fish & Game officers to try and get the notice waived.

The judge however, told the accused he should have bought the licence before fishing, and not to “get off the hook.”

He sentenced the man to 75 hours community work.

Anthony van Dorp says that over the past couple of years, Fish & Game has dealt with a number of similar cases where people caught without a licence have gone and bought one “to try and cover their tracks.”

These people trying to get the licence back-dated and claim they had one are in a strict legal sense committing fraud – by using a false document, he says.

Such offences carry stiff sentences – fines of up to $10,000 and 12 months imprisonment.

Anthony van Dorp says that shop keepers who are issuing licences should never back date them in any case - and if they do so, they can also face action from Fish & Game.

ENDS

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