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Three men caught fishing for elvers with illegal nets have been ordered to pay £4,509 in fines and costs. The case was brought by the Environment Agency.
Environment Agency bailiffs were carrying out routine checks on the River Parrett at Bridgwater on March 5, 2008, when they found Paul Squire fishing with a fixed net.
An elver dip net should only be operated by hand. Officer’s saw that Squire had attached a rope and float to his net and fixed the net handle to the riverbank using a stake. A series of long poles had been attached to the net to keep it in a fixed position in the river.
A net used in this way, known as a ‘fixed engine’, gives a fisherman an unfair advantage and enables him to catch more than his fair share of elvers. Eel numbers have declined in recent years and it is important stocks are not over-fished.
Squire, of Chilton Street, Bridgwater, was fined £700 and ordered to pay £925 costs by local magistrates after pleading guilty to four fishing offences of contravening the National Eel Fishing Byelaws 2004 and the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Act 1975.
Paul Meare, of Osborne Road, Bridgwater, who was fishing with Squire, admitted three offences and was fined £525 and ordered to pay costs of £847.
In a separate incident on February 22, Steven Riddle, of Penzoy Avenue, Bridgwater, was caught on the River Parrett using an illegal elver net. He admitted three offences and was fined £525 and was also ordered to pay full costs of £987.
All three men had nets and equipment seized at the time of the offences. The court ordered these items to be destroyed.
In his summing up the magistrate at Bridgwater told the fishermen they were lucky not to be banned from elver fishing. He added if they were caught in the future a very heavy fine would be imposed and a ban would be part of that sentence.
‘Illegal fishing damages eel stocks, is detrimental to the environment and unfair to law abiding fishermen. We will not tolerate the use of fixed nets and will prosecute anyone we catch fishing illegally on the River Parrett,’ said Richard Dearnley for the Environment Agency.
The Environment Agency regularly inspects the elver fishery on the River Parrett. Fishermen pay £69 a year for a licence. Dip nets are used to catch elvers – baby eels – as they enter freshwater after their journey from the Sargasso Sea. Elver fishing can be lucrative. In 2005 the price of elvers peaked at £525 per kilogram. They currently fetch around £200 per kilogram.
