DEP working to educate on saltwater licences
By Charles Walsh
CORRESPONDENT
If eyewitnesses are to be believed, a team of Department of Environmental Protection enforcement officers made a sweep of the Lordship seawall in Stratford last week, checking anglers for saltwater licenses.
When a couple of anglers not only could not produce marine licenses, but had no ID of any kind, Stratford police were summoned and the men, who may have been illegal aliens, were taken away in handcuffs.
David Simpson, director of the DEP's Marine Division, confirmed that DEP wardens have been conducting organized checks for licenses of both shore-bound anglers and those in boats all along the coast, including Stratford. He added that no tickets have been issued yet and there are no plans to do so until 2010. The amount of the fine for fishing without a saltwater license has yet to be established by the State Legislature.
"For this year, we will be doing only education and outreach on the saltwater license," Simpson said. "If those people were taken away by police, it had to be for some other infraction."
Simpson said that he spoke with the head of the DEP enforcement section on Thursday and as of then, no tickets or arrests had been made for failure to possess a saltwater license. He stressed, however, that if an angler was caught in another offense, like taking short stripers or fluke, and did not have a saltwater license, the officers might include the license offense in the charges.
So far about 20,000 of the $10 saltwater licenses have been sold, Simpson said.
One outstanding question about the saltwater license that has Connecticut anglers worried is the reciprocity issue. New York's license law, which does not go into affect until October, contains language that permits a person with a Connecticut license to fish in some, but not all of its territorial waters. Just how much of New York's waters will be open to Connecticut fishermen is the subject ongoing of negotiations between the Marine Division of the DEP and the New York environmental officials.
Simpson said he hopes that New York will include all of the Long Island Sound to Montauk in the reciprocal wording. He said he doubted New York would agree to include the south shore of Long Island in any reciprocal agreement.
If, for example, New York were to set the "in/out" line in the middle of The Race, one of the most popular fishing areas in the Northeast, by the time a Connecticut boat completed a drift on the ebb tide, it would be in New York territory and the anglers on the boat subject to arrest by Empire State officers.
Some Connecticut anglers have broached the possibility of buying only a New York license that would give them the right to fish everywhere. Simpson said Connecticut residents must have a Connecticut license to fish in Long Island Sound.
The Connecticut DEP has a list of frequently asked questions about the marine license on its Web site, www.ct.gov/dep.
Contact Charles Walsh at cwalsh@ctpost.com.۩
By Charles Walsh
CORRESPONDENT
If eyewitnesses are to be believed, a team of Department of Environmental Protection enforcement officers made a sweep of the Lordship seawall in Stratford last week, checking anglers for saltwater licenses.
When a couple of anglers not only could not produce marine licenses, but had no ID of any kind, Stratford police were summoned and the men, who may have been illegal aliens, were taken away in handcuffs.
David Simpson, director of the DEP's Marine Division, confirmed that DEP wardens have been conducting organized checks for licenses of both shore-bound anglers and those in boats all along the coast, including Stratford. He added that no tickets have been issued yet and there are no plans to do so until 2010. The amount of the fine for fishing without a saltwater license has yet to be established by the State Legislature.
"For this year, we will be doing only education and outreach on the saltwater license," Simpson said. "If those people were taken away by police, it had to be for some other infraction."
Simpson said that he spoke with the head of the DEP enforcement section on Thursday and as of then, no tickets or arrests had been made for failure to possess a saltwater license. He stressed, however, that if an angler was caught in another offense, like taking short stripers or fluke, and did not have a saltwater license, the officers might include the license offense in the charges.
So far about 20,000 of the $10 saltwater licenses have been sold, Simpson said.
One outstanding question about the saltwater license that has Connecticut anglers worried is the reciprocity issue. New York's license law, which does not go into affect until October, contains language that permits a person with a Connecticut license to fish in some, but not all of its territorial waters. Just how much of New York's waters will be open to Connecticut fishermen is the subject ongoing of negotiations between the Marine Division of the DEP and the New York environmental officials.
Simpson said he hopes that New York will include all of the Long Island Sound to Montauk in the reciprocal wording. He said he doubted New York would agree to include the south shore of Long Island in any reciprocal agreement.
If, for example, New York were to set the "in/out" line in the middle of The Race, one of the most popular fishing areas in the Northeast, by the time a Connecticut boat completed a drift on the ebb tide, it would be in New York territory and the anglers on the boat subject to arrest by Empire State officers.
Some Connecticut anglers have broached the possibility of buying only a New York license that would give them the right to fish everywhere. Simpson said Connecticut residents must have a Connecticut license to fish in Long Island Sound.
The Connecticut DEP has a list of frequently asked questions about the marine license on its Web site, www.ct.gov/dep.
Contact Charles Walsh at cwalsh@ctpost.com.۩
