Reporting F&w Employee Behavior?

[reevesr1]

Folks,

I pulled this from the Spey clinic post. I don't know if many read that thread, but I thought this was stunning and wonder who we could report to? From fisherking:

 

On a side note, we were getting ready to go to the other side of the river to practice casting . On are way over, 3 alberta fish and wildlife officers came down to the river. I thought they were coming down to check our licenses. As we made our way closer they stopped and started to rig up a couple of rods to fish on the river. I thought this odd considering I've never seen them fish the river in uniform. We started a conversation with them and it turns out they work at the hatchery. They needed to collect a brown trout to send to the taxidermist for some exhibit. So on went the 6 inch slip bobber, weights and snell hooks fitted with a dew worm. I don't know why but something about this just didn't make me feel right. Well he casts out and we all watch. A minute or two later he gets a bite and fish on. He reels it in and its not a brown, its a whitey with the hook down in the gullet. So the young officer pulls out the leathermens and is trying to pull the hook out. I was going to use my forceps until i realized how deep it was. We suugested that he cut the line and let the fish go. So he cut the line and lobbed the fish into shallow water. The fish hit the bottom and went belly up right away. The one young officer says its only a f#@#%&^ whitey. So scott goes out and grabs the fish and spends 30 seconds reviving it and it ended up swimming away. Pretty appalling behavior in my books. I hope these guys are not the future for fish and wildlife.

 

The behavior is amazing in itself. The fact that they would do it in front of a bunch of other fishermen is simply jaw dropping. Is there any place this type of crap can be reported? It can't be too hard for their supervisors to figure out who was catching a brown for a taxidermist. Like there aren't enough stuffed browns around. At least now I know where the bait containers at Southland come from.

 

Edit:

These were not CO's. They were F&W Employees working for a hatchery.

[Brownstone]

Brutal behavior indeed .. if knowing who to report it to is an issue, I'm sure the media could help you out

[bhurt]

Rick,

 

First thing is that the guys that were there WERE NOT C.O's

 

These guys had a special permit to use bait and work for Fish and Wildlife

 

What they did was brabaric and set the wrong example for many people, but I want it to be known that they were not CONSVERATION OFFICERS. Even though their uniform looked like Conservation Officers they were just some people that worked for Fish and Wildlife.

 

Also I would like to add that they were fishin for the LEGAL size (I belive it is under 24cm which is roughly 10 inches) which anyone is allowed to do and I belive it is a limit of 1.

 

Putting that aside I already put in a phone call to Fish and Wildlife about this yesterday as it was so bad I had to get up and move as I was fumming pretty bad and wanted to take their rods and break them over their heads. Even though the fish they caught was a white fish there is absoultly no reason to take the fish and toss it back into the water because it was not te one that they were looking for, absoultly appaling.

 

I WANT EVERYONE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THE PEOPLE THAT WERE INVOVLED IN THIS WERE NOT CONSERVATION OFFICERS, THEY WERE EMPLOYED THROUGH FISH AND WILDLIFE SO THEIR UNFIROMS ARE VERY SIMILIAR, YOU NEEDED TO READ THE CREST ON THEIR UNIFORMS TO SEE THAT THEY WERE NOT ANY TYPE OF LAW ENFORMENT WHAT SO EVER.

 

Please lets put the blame on the right people, our C.O's are doing a really good job (even though we need much more officers) and that these backwater, hillybilly, ignorent idoits are not labeled in the same group.

[bloom]

Media not the first option. Do a search on the internet for contact info, or simply call the report a poacher line and ask them for info.

 

CO's do a lot of good work around here. Don't want a black mark for the whole group beacause of a POSSIBLE couple idiots (there's always the chance they were'nt CO's)

 

Definatley make the call though.

[BillyGopher]

Sounds like a good idea, almost as good an idea as a photo shoot over NYC with a huge, low flying plane doing circles over the city with a fighter jet on its ass.

[reevesr1]

Brad,

I edited my post and title.

 

Still amazing to me.

 

 

[bhurt]

Brad,

I edited my post and title.

 

Still amazing to me.

Rick,

 

Thanks man, I just wanted to make sure the wrong people were not getting blamed for what another group did, and yes I agree with you 100%, what these idoits did was absoultly appauling and since their uniforms looked lie C.O's I could see how people could get the wrong impression, and see them as C.O

 

All F&W employees in my opion should be out there setting the example (which is what upset me the most) about how to handle fish but the older more senrior guy out there was bragging to us how worms is the best bait and will beat anyting we use. I wanted to say to him, well this is a C&R river with a bait ban, and to the uneducated people out there people might get the impression tha bait is allowed and start using bait not knowing and thinking, well if a C.O (even though they were not C.O's they sure in hell looked like one) is using bait so can I.

 

They even used a hook that one of them called a "Slow Death"

 

Geeeeze I guess F&W is not to concern with the trout in the river when they hire and train idoits as what we saw at Southland on Tuesday.

 

Honestly it took everything I had to not cause a problem as I figured I would just call it in and see if they do any house cleaning. The gentleman that I talked to on the phone seemed shooked and asked me if I was sure it wasn;t someone just dressing up as a F&W? When I told him no and I looked at his cresting on his unfirom, the gentalemen I talked to was even further stunded as he was wondering why someone would get into F&W with a menatalty these idoits had.

 

Regardless to whatever was done a report was made and more people need to report this and put pressure on these idoits for what they did, and represente, iving C.O's and F&W a extremly bad name.

[Hawgstoppah]

Holy hell what in the name of god do they need to bait fish for to catch a fish in the Bow? What a brutal example. And it accomplished exactly why bait isnt allowed. Killing the incedental catches (that whitefish). Waita go boys! Learn how to fish.. or ask someone who does know how to bring in a brown.

 

By the way isnt it zero catch and keep until July on ALL parts of the Bow? I havent picked up this years regs booklet so I may be wrong but I remember it being 1 or 2 fish under 35cm from JUNE 16 - OCT 31 the rest of the year trout limit zero. Am I wrong?

 

Can anyone post or PM me the phone number for these employees superior officer? I think we need to raise awareness of what these knuckle heads are doing on the river.

 

 

[headscan]

By the way isnt it zero catch and keep until July on ALL parts of the Bow? I havent picked up this years regs booklet so I may be wrong but I remember it being 1 or 2 fish under 35cm from JUNE 16 - OCT 31 the rest of the year trout limit zero. Am I wrong?

From the regs:

from the Western Headworks Diversion (W.H.D.) Weir downstream to the Carseland Weir(includes 500 m of the Highwood River) but excluding all waters in the Inglewood Bird Sanctuary (see Inglewood Bird Sanctuary) – Open all year.

Apr. 1 to Mar. 31 – Trout limit 1 under 35 cm; All Trout over 35 cm must be released; Mountain Whitefish limit 5 over 30 cm; Bait Ban.

 

Still doesn't make what they did right.

[bhurt]

You could be right on the regs brain, it is sometyhing like that for keeping fish, but since I not longer practice those methods I generally don't worry about remebering those regs, if need be I will always pull out my copy in my backpack and check first.

 

All I did was looked up the phone number for the hatchery here in town, can't remeber number but I think I did underline it in my phonebook, and asked for a sr. supervisor for the bow.

 

I would guess Fish and wildlife division here in calgary could be a combination of multipule groups it might be faught with more resistance, or just got lost in the shuffle of paper, and I knew these guys where getting a sepsimen for something to do with the fish hatchery.

 

So if your appauled by this lets start flooding THEIR office with phone calls and inguries as to why such a barbic method, with a high chance of inccediental killing of trout was imployed?

 

BTW just watched a shoking docementry called Sharkwaters (highly recommended) all about longlining Sharks in Costa Rico for the sole purpose of finning (High demand in the Asian market for shark fins and nothing else) and all the other species of wildlife that got killed, the killings of the great sea tortoise was almost too much to bear.

[McLeod]

What the regs say are not relevant. They have a special permit.. But their conduct is of a concern.

[Hawgstoppah]

a special permit to collect an out of season fish for the purpose of taxidermy? sounds bogus to me. The methods employed (bait, snelled hook, and I assume a barb?) are just appaling.

[cheeler]

One of them mentioned that his job for the past year was to collect samples of all fish species in Alberta using a variety of methods - apparently to be used for educational purposes when the hatchery opens up to the public again. I don't have a problem with taking a fish for educational purposes, but they should demonstrate better behaviour on the water.

[birchy]

Completely inappropriate.. special permit or not.

[headscan]

The methods employed (bait, snelled hook, and I assume a barb?) are just appaling.

Yeah, practice what you preach - F&W employees should be setting an example for others. I would've loved to call RAP on them if I was there.

[Current]

WTF? Have they never heard of replicas?