By Hank Shelley, Observer contributor
Fisheries Officers, like Conservation Officers have to deal with a variety of situations on a daily basis, making the job exciting, rewarding and sometimes frustrating.
Beginning with three weeks of regional training to start, it takes one into the real world of poachers and the identity of all aspects of commercial fishing, rules and regulations on the Fisheries Act and habitat.
After a few seasons and a little booklet tucked in a uniform shirt pocket, there is the B.C. sport fishing regulations. Fisheries regs, and the regular ticket book the RCMP and we use to write up a ticket, on traffic, wildlife, liquor, fishing, hunting regulations.
Then there are the oddball situations that come along.
It started with a phone call to the fishery office a few years back, and the gal on the other end of the phone was really ticked.
Seems, her and another gal watched the manager of a small RV park at Chase fall a couple of aging cottonwood trees (danger trees) in the campground, and was towing them out by boat into Little Shuswap Lake to set them adrift.
Their husbands were out boating at the time. The concern was serious injury to all boaters including illegally taking the trees into the water in the first place.
I arrived to take in the situation by taking photos and calming them down, then drove to the village office to obtain a legal description of the campground.
Just then the phone rang, and a lady said there were dogs chasing the big horn sheep on the steep hillside.
I said I’d check it out, as the RCMP members were all busy. I didn’t find any canines chasing the sheep, but a call from the office, on a chap at Blue Waters Resort, saying his 10-year-old son, had been caught in a snare wire around the foot, as he was playing in a bush area, next to a very expensive home and lawn on the lake.
On arriving there, I interviewed the dad and son, went into the bush and lawns and found five more thin wire snares. On inquiring, the home belonged to a prominent dentist with a practice in Kamloops.
We met next day, and he said he was trying to keep geese from pooping on his lawn. I asked if he’d ever tried to free a pee’d off goose, with its wings flapping, bouncing around on his manicured lawns?
He was also charged with cutting down shrubbery out in the lake below high water mark. Just little things ya don’t learn in regional!
Fishing: Gardom doing fair on chironimids or willowleaf worm. White producing on chironimids, pumpkin head leech, trolled small flatfish. Other local lakes have high water. Check with your local sport shop for the latest.
Fish and Game club: Lots of activity.
Check things out on our web page.Hey all you hunter’s LEH is now out. Can be printed out or checked on your computer!