A LOCAL grandfather is outraged at being fined for taking his grandchildren fishing.
Domenic Italiano took his six and 11-year-old grandchildren fishing near the Griffin Bridge during the school holidays.
Mr Italiano does not have a freshwater fishing licence and because his grandchildren were fishing, he thought he was safe.
A licence is needed only by people aged 16 years or older.
But six-year-old Kayden Pola was battling to cast his line, so Mr Italiano was casting for him.
When fisheries officers arrived, he was surprised to be stung with a $100 fine.
A fisheries officer claimed to have seen him casting the line, Mr Italiano said.
By the time he saw the fisheries officer, Kayden was holding the line.
“We had two children’s fishing lines, one was bright green and the other bright pink so it was pretty obvious I wasn’t the one fishing,” he said.
“But he said he saw me casting the line.
“I don’t even know whether he did or not, he might have just guessed that Kayden was too young and presumed I was casting the line for him.”
Mr Italiano was not put out by the $100 fine, but more the fact that the fisheries officer made a bad judgment call and fined him for casting the line for his six-year-old grandson. “I didn’t have a fishing rod for myself, I didn’t even really expect to catch anything, I just wanted to spend some time with my grandchildren,” he said.
“I couldn’t exactly send them out on their own, they could get hurt or drown. I was just there to supervise.”
Mr Italiano said if anything, he was only hoping to catch perch, which are pests and he should not need a licence to catch them anyway.
“I have since got my fishing licence and it says if I catch any perch I am not to throw them back, no matter the size, because they are vermin,” he said.
“They expect us to do the right thing, but we have to have a licence to do it.”
Another local fisherman, Neville Dye, is running a petition to change current freshwater fishing laws so that a licence is not needed to catch perch. The petition, which can be signed at SportsFirst, Collie Home Timber and Hardware, Amaroo Deli and Vikki May’s Deli, has already attracted some 330 signatures.
Mr Dye said fisheries officers issued him with a $100 infringement when he was fishing for perch last month.
Although Mr Dye told them he was only fishing for perch, and showed them four perch in his bucket, they told him it was still illegal and fined him, he said.
“They let me keep the fish. If it is illegal to catch them without a licence, then why didn’t they take the fish off me,” he said.
“I am doing the Fisheries Department a favour by catching them.
“Aboriginals do not need a licence to catch them, where is the fairness in that?
“Will they make people get a licence to catch cane toads as well, because they are introduced and they are vermin?” he said.
Mr Dye will give the petition to Collie-Preston MLA Mick Murray in a few weeks for him to present in Parliament.
Mr Murray said the fisheries officers had made a bad judgment call on Mr Italiano.
“It is ridiculous that he has been fined. He took his grandchildren out there in good faith, there were only two rods and he was just helping the kids,” he said.
“The Fisheries Department doesn’t have a good name at the best of times, this is just one of the problems with the fishing laws.
“The fact that the fisheries officers told Mr Italiano that they had to pack up and go was illegal. There was nothing to stop the kids if they wanted to keep fishing.”
Mr Murray said people should not need a licence to catch perch.
“I can take my kids to the beach in Bunbury and fish for herring, but I can’t fish for vermin in Collie,” he said.
Mr Murray said that if he was presented with a residents’ petition he would raise it in Parliament.
Department of Fisheries principal management officer Nathan Harrison said the current freshwater fishing licence had been in place for decades.
A licence was needed for people whether they were fishing for perch or trout because anyone caught “would just say they were fishing for perch”, he said.
He confirmed that people were encouraged to not throw perch back into the water if caught because they were pests.
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