Neels,

There is a difference between friends being friendly, and people taking advantage of the law and its short commings. In your situation, you had an excess and did something nice for someone, they in turn felt in some way endebted to you and returned a nice favor - fairly simple, the issue is intent, your intent was not to gain. you did not take the fish with the intent to gain from them, it is the same as having people come for a fish feed, telling them not to bring food but to provide the booze...you feed them fish they feed you booze, thats not the issue. (intent is the difference in many legal battles ie murder vs manslaughter)

Issue you and I seem to share is when the intent from the moment they go fishing is to gain in either property or cash. This is wrong, it is what a commercial fishing licence is for and why they cost so much more then a rec licence, as far as I am concerned they should be procecuted to the FULL extent of the law, and with them being grey nomads I believe their motor home or van, their vehicle, their tinny the whole lot should be taken and sold in auction. With the FULL proceeds going to either breeding programs for our "low" stocks or to policing the fisheries further.

Anyways enough of my soap box. But i hope you understand and it puts your mind at ease...

Ray

i personally will take enough for my family and on special occasions will give some to a friend not expecting anything in return. 

if you (or the nomad) said I'll give you this in return for that then that is a commercial agreement and is against

the law when talking sea food the fact you didnt have a verbal or otherwise agreement with your cleaner

would mean what you did was not against the law unless at some time in the past you had such an agreement

if this old coot is well known for trading his fish then thats ilegal (and why dont fisheries do something about him)

but try and get others he trades with to say they traded with him two thing they would be shunned from the old coot brigade and they wouldnt get cheap fish anymore he needs to be caught in the act. If people on here know who he is

then dont just whinge about it dob him in and if fisheries wont do anything call the local radio and papers.

A few years ago I read in the paper of an old timer use to give herring to his local newsagent. In appreciation the newsagent gave him a lotto ticket which won. Subsequently, a story in the paper was run, to which fisheries found out.

I believe fisheries investigated, but I do not believe any further action was taken. Wadray reasoning above probably explians it.

I think this coot (not what I would call him) is well known, and from the rumours has been doing this for ages.

I have no facts, but this has pissed me off so much  just thinking about his X-smug face. Thinking he is so cool etc etc. Fisheries IS aware, and they know my irritation.

The other rumour is that someone trades crays for "Hardware". The hardware is stuff I would like, is a passion of mine. But it is a small town, with only a few "hardware" stores, but lets face it, it isnt hardware as in Bunnings stuff.

This IS illegal and I am going to inform fisheries about this, when I have worked out how.

There will always be benders off the law, but bragging about it, using the stock for gain has me outraged. Just had to clarify the issue before I could be seen to be in a similar situation. I is nice when we can be nice to other people, and I agree with aaaaaaaaas about WAdray.

Neels

I believe that Fisheries approached Cicerellos a few years back and either charged or warned them about swapping chips  for live fish caught by kids nearby in the harbour.

Seems petty but I guess something cant be only "a little bit illegal".

BUT-Crasney Ive done similar to your scenario and dont feel in any way bad. But I wouldnt bother asking Fisheries that question cos I know they just say "no" to any question.

 Only last week I saw an ad on gumtree in free section to swap Spanish Mack for red meat seemed dodgy I wouldn't trust fish cought off a guy on gumtree yeah sure it only a week old!

Sounds a bit petty to me.An old bloke swappin a few muddies for some other stuff isnt going to ruin the economy.If the government looked after the older generation a bit better maybe he wouldnt need to do this HIGHLY illegal activity.How dare he.To many do gooders around these days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No mate it isnt. This chap was doing multiple trips getting 20/day at least, and then on sellingtrading them for "the Bare Necessities of life". Almost bragging about it.

If hes exceeding his daily bag limit then hopefully fisheries catch up with him sooner rather than later.

nothing wrong with trading say 1 of my mully's (within bag limit) for someone's say muddies or something else. Too many laws and crap these days, I think it's more for blackmarket large scale quantaties. If the bloke was takin 20'odd a day then yeah I'd be photo'ing him, his gear and catch (if possible) taking as much info as possible and passing onto fisheries. But if your all sittin around the communal kitchen and someone pipes up about trading somethin for a fish or something well there's no harm in that surely?

I have given my boss a few bags of squid over the last year, just cos I had some great trips and caught a few.  I dont personally like much seafood.

I have huge muther of a dog, which will eat anything.  My boss brings in leftover food / bones for me to give my dog. Saves it stinking out the rubbish bin!    We do this cos we are friends.

This mudcrab raping old coont should fuck off and leave the crabs for the locals. 

I dont eat crabs, so dont target them.  However, when my parents come up to visit, I would appreciate it if there was at least a couple left so I can go and catch one for my old man to try.

Our creeks are only a couple km's long.  The crabs are obviously territorial and there cant be too many left if this old count has really taken hundreds in the space of a few weeks

 Seems like this old bastard has touched a nerve raping all these crabs and rightly so i dont think the fisheries are to worried about the old you bring the piss and i bring the crabs routine long as you stay within the limits me personally i think the bag limits on muddies should be dropped to 5 or 6 per boat i got three kids and watching them tear apart 4 big males theres enough for me and the missus as well  but i spoke to one of the old turds mates and he reckons 150 crabs in 9 or 10 days and hes bragging  and selling /trading them hence i call the fisheries to sort this shithead out i gave them an adress to go to so i will be disappointed if nothing comes of it i think the idea is enjoy your days on the water if you get a feed all the better and screw all the other people that cant be arsed goin to get there own

 if i catch a bigfish, then share it if friends or family etc does that make it illegal?i dont mind sharing(thats not trading imo),then 1 day my friend gives me cookies,or vegies etc because they had extra aswel ,does this honestly make it ilegal? no money was exchanged imo,its just people been nice to people ,imo wtf not illegal,where has generosity,caring etc gone these days............its also the same as myself giving a hand to some1 without wanting nothing in return but they want to give me a carton for been helpful,ican agree to disagree ,who dont like what i have to say about this topic get a life and lighten up.............

Joe that is what I  was asking. Not Accusing. I was talking about giving over your capacity

No your right joe catching a big fish and giving some to a friend is sharing its not illegal i think everyone is mostly up in arms about catching more than your quota day in day out and giving it or selling it to every tom dick or harry and basicaly raping more than there share of the crabs ,fish or whatever you may be catching its gotta be a common sense aproach surely but it is somehow lacking this day and age.