Fisherman fined $18,000 for fishing untagged traps

There’s been another fine handed down in the court for a violation involving untagged lobster traps.

Forty-two-year-old Christopher A. Surette of Sluice Point, Yarmouth County, N.S. was fined $18,000 in provincial court for fishing 30 untagged traps. The offence took place on April 28 in lobster fishing area 34.

The court also ordered the Yarmouth County fisherman to forfeit 716 pounds of lobster that was valued at $3,271.

The court has suspended Surette’s lobster licence for the last two weeks of the next commercial lobster season in lobster fishing area 34.

This is the third fine and penalty of this nature to be handed down recently in the courts in southwestern Nova Scotia. In the past couple of months a Meteghan fisherman was fined $30,000 for fishing 64 untagged lobster traps and a Shelburne County fisherman received a fine of $21,000 for fishing 50 untagged traps. Both men also received suspensions for the final two weeks of the next lobster season.

In addition to Surette’s fine for fishing untagged lobster traps, he was fined $2,000 for possession of female crab that DFO says was being used as bait. Conservation rules prevent female crab from being landed or used as bait. Surette was ordered to forfeit 20 tagged traps.