Freshwater Fishing License...Who can ask to see it?

[MisterHappy]

I teach HE, but don't know this one (after all it's fishing, not hunting ): Who is empowered to ask to see your freshwater fishing license?

Scenario: person is sitting on the side of a body of water with a line out...can a local cop or Statie ask to see your fishing license? Or is it only EPOs?

I figured I'd ask here, before I called the EPOs, just in case.

I did a bit of google-fu, but got no cite.

Thanks, Brain Trust.

 

[Chevy 2 65]

View: https://youtu.be/mfDnii1a7Vw

 

[pupchow]

In MA:

321 CMR 2.00: Miscellaneous Regulations Relating to Division of Fisheries and Wildlife

" All persons hunting, fishing, or trapping pursuant to M.G.L. c. 131 shall produce for examination upon demand of any officer or other person specified in M.G.L. c. 131, § 32 any licenses, permits, stamps, or certificates issued to them. Persons may produce any such license or permit, including those that document the issuance of a stamp or certificate, by displaying a true, complete and legible image of it on their mobile device. "


General Law - Part I, Title XIX, Chapter 131, Section 32

" Such licenses, permits or certificates shall be produced for examination upon the demand of the director of law enforcement, deputy directors of enforcement, chiefs of enforcement, deputy chiefs of enforcement, environmental police officers, deputy environmental police officers, deputies, wardens, or other officers qualified to serve criminal process, the director of fisheries and wildlife and his agents, or the owner or lessee of land upon which the privileges of the license, permit or certificate are being exercised. "

 

[MisterHappy]

Bingo.

Thanks, pupchow.

 

[whacko]

I teach HE, but don't know this one (after all it's fishing, not hunting ): Who is empowered to ask to see your freshwater fishing license?

Scenario: person is sitting on the side of a body of water with a line out...can a local cop or Statie ask to see your fishing license? Or is it only EPOs?

I figured I'd ask here, before I called the EPOs, just in case.

I did a bit of google-fu, but got no cite.

Thanks, Brain Trust.

Seems to reason that in mass an epoch can enforce non f and g laws like speeding etc......that a statie or townie should be able to ask for a fishing license.

 

[garandman]

They’re a fun group....

 

[Dennis in MA]

I was watching old North Woods Law reruns yesterday on TV. The Maine years. The episodes were full of "we're gunna git deez dem people and tickickem!"

You watch it today and it's all flowers and rainbows with minimal tickets and arrests. I think that game wardens realized they were getting boned by the show. I mean, they have a somewhat bad rep to begin with. NWL wasn't helping. Now they are Officer Friendly.

I was at a pheasant hunt several years ago. GW was at the parking lot as people filtered back in. Instead of a smile and asking to see hunting lic's, he announced in an aggressive tone that he wanted fishing lic's, DL's and LTC's for EVERYONE in each party. Dude. Don't be a tool. Please. It's not helping you do your job. Let's try this: Smile!

 

[Sparkey]

It always seems the EPO asks me for my license but not the foreign bucket brigade from the inner city that doesn’t speak English and has no license.

 

[Mark from MA]

I was watching old North Woods Law reruns yesterday on TV. The Maine years. The episodes were full of "we're gunna git deez dem people and tickickem!"

You watch it today and it's all flowers and rainbows with minimal tickets and arrests. I think that game wardens realized they were getting boned by the show. I mean, they have a somewhat bad rep to begin with. NWL wasn't helping. Now they are Officer Friendly.

I was at a pheasant hunt several years ago. GW was at the parking lot as people filtered back in. Instead of a smile and asking to see hunting lic's, he announced in an aggressive tone that he wanted fishing lic's, DL's and LTC's for EVERYONE in each party. Dude. Don't be a tool. Please. It's not helping you do your job. Let's try this: Smile!

Just like any other job. Some people are douchebags others not so much. A few of the wardens ive run across at ma hunting classes have been fine. Others, total Hitler

I generally give back the same attitude Im approached with.

 

[Dennis in MA]

It always seems the EPO asks me for my license but not the foreign bucket brigade from the inner city that doesn’t speak English and has no license.

Oh gosh. Her sister was principal of the private school my kids attended! There were challenging families and then the near-perfect inMA family. Guess who's kid would get a reprimand or talking to by the principal???? Yep. My oldest daughter took it the most. It was like, "well, Dennis won't make a fuss, so we'll use his daughter as an example for all the bad kids." Really?? REALLY????? She did a lot to make it SEEM like she was doing her job without doing her job. Re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Minoring on the majors and majoring on the minors. I didn't see it as clearly as I should have at the time. But we moved on. And that was a good thing for us.

 

[Mark from MA]

I was watching old North Woods Law reruns yesterday on TV. The Maine years. The episodes were full of "we're gunna git deez dem people and tickickem!"

You watch it today and it's all flowers and rainbows with minimal tickets and arrests. I think that game wardens realized they were getting boned by the show. I mean, they have a somewhat bad rep to begin with. NWL wasn't helping. Now they are Officer Friendly.

I'm also not sure what you mean by getting boned by the show. I'm sure the show embellishes alot...but "we're gunna git deez dem people and tickickem!" is the Game Warden's fault. I saw a lot of that in the early shows.....where the attitude was, please shoot that mechanical deer in the field so we can bag you! They wanted it to happen.

Here's what likely happened...Maine is a vacation destination that gets a boost in the local economy from sporting tourism. Consumers of the Maine Sporting Economy maybe started saying NFW, and licenses took a hit. I really don't know....from what I saw, I wouldn't want to go there.

Or....The local guides and camps complained and said, Thanks for showing our Warden Douchbaggery.....your basically killing our businesses, because of this no one wants to come here anymore. This likely got back to Lepage...who put the kibosh on whole thing.

Maybe the new Govenor let them back on, but they learned their lesson that being aholes generally isn't good when a decent portion of your local economy is tourism.

I personally know a guy who got a 300 dollar ticket for his grandson putting a live fish in a bucket of dead fish by mistake by a Maine GW. He was targeted because he was a Ma**h***, guaranteed. Little did they know he owned serious land up there. He said that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to him and his sons and grandsons. He sold his place in Maine, out of spite, he sold to an antihunter, who posted the whole place.

Now over a 300 dollar silly ticket, they lose his, sons, and grandsons license sales, over $600 a year times say 25 years, not including license increases. Plus what whatever monies they used for food, and supplies, going to lunch, etc to the local economy. Plus the land is posted and the new owner allows no one on, no hunting at all, where my friend allowed locals on and anyone that asked.

My friend used HALF the proceeds and bought a place in Kentucky, with more land, less taxes, and ten times more game than Maine had. They used to shoot maybe a deer a year between the 6 of them, if they saw anything at all.

Now in KY they have their choice of what too shoot, as they see tons of deer,turkeys and other game. They now pass deer up and are selective. Yet still put plenty of meat in the freezer. More than they ever did in Maine.

 

[MisterHappy]

I was watching old North Woods Law reruns yesterday on TV. The Maine years. The episodes were full of "we're gunna git deez dem people and tickickem!"

You watch it today and it's all flowers and rainbows with minimal tickets and arrests. I think that game wardens realized they were getting boned by the show. I mean, they have a somewhat bad rep to begin with. NWL wasn't helping. Now they are Officer Friendly.

I was at a pheasant hunt several years ago. GW was at the parking lot as people filtered back in. Instead of a smile and asking to see hunting lic's, he announced in an aggressive tone that he wanted fishing lic's, DL's and LTC's for EVERYONE in each party. Dude. Don't be a tool. Please. It's not helping you do your job. Let's try this: Smile!

That IS harsh....asking for fishing licenses, for pheasant hunters!

Just curious - what if you were carpooling - would Ossifer Fiendly still want a DL?

You are right - good manners don't cost anything.

 

[Dennis in MA]

I'm also not sure what you mean by getting boned by the show. I'm sure the show embellishes alot...but "we're gunna git deez dem people and tickickem!" is the Game Warden's fault. I saw a lot of that in the early shows.....where the attitude was, please shoot that mechanical deer in the field so we can bag you! They wanted it to happen.

Here's what likely happened...Maine is a vacation destination that gets a boost in the local economy from sporting tourism. Consumers of the Maine Sporting Economy maybe started saying NFW, and licenses took a hit. I really don't know....from what I saw, I wouldn't want to go there.

Or....The local guides and camps complained and said, Thanks for showing our Warden Douchbaggery.....your basically killing our businesses, because of this no one wants to come here anymore. This likely got back to Lepage...who put the kibosh on whole thing.

Maybe the new Govenor let them back on, but they learned their lesson that being aholes generally isn't good when a decent portion of your local economy is tourism.

I personally know a guy who got a 300 dollar ticket for his grandson putting a live fish in a bucket of dead fish by mistake by a Maine GW. He was targeted because he was a Ma**h***, guaranteed. Little did they know he owned serious land up there. He said that ticket was the best thing that ever happened to him and his sons and grandsons. He sold his place in Maine, out of spite, he sold to an antihunter, who posted the whole place.

Now over a 300 dollar silly ticket, they lose his, sons, and grandsons license sales, over $600 a year times say 25 years, not including license increases. Plus what whatever monies they used for food, and supplies, going to lunch, etc to the local economy. Plus the land is posted and the new owner allows no one on, no hunting at all, where my friend allowed locals on and anyone that asked.

My friend used HALF the proceeds and bought a place in Kentucky, with more land, less taxes, and ten times more game than Maine had. They used to shoot maybe a deer a year between the 6 of them, if they saw anything at all.

Now in KY they have their choice of what too shoot, as they see tons of deer,turkeys and other game. They now pass deer up and are selective. Yet still put plenty of meat in the freezer. More than they ever did in Maine.

That's exactly what I mean. F&G officers from all over were likely getting a bad rep because of the show's aggressive nature. Hence the "well, we're going to work with you" attitude of NWL now.

That IS harsh....asking for fishing licenses, for pheasant hunters!

Just curious - what if you were carpooling - would Ossifer Fiendly still want a DL?

You are right - good manners don't cost anything.

That was my thought. What if I didn't have my DL??? And while everyone MIGHT need a hunting lic, not EVERYONE needed a LTC. I didn't find out. I put my gun away, wandered over to my buddy's truck and the F&G guy just breezed by my truck. If you DIDN'T want to get checked, it was easy enough to avoid it. But the guy had a total attitude about it. I'm sure he was afraid of all these guys with guns who hate F&G people. But put on a smile, for crying out loud. You can't have eyes everywhere. Hunters and fisherers are your eyes. Make friends of them and you'll find out tons more about preserving what you claim to want to preserve.

 

[StevieP]

Eff ME EPO or whatever they are.

Brother-in-law owned a pontoon boat at their Sebago home. Took a bunch of us out, and we made our way up some river, and were drifting back to the lake. EPO pulled him over b/c the registration sticker on the side was from the last year. SIL had re-registered it that week but the decals weren't there yet. Because the cop couldn't write them up for the registration he made sure there were enough life jackets, horn worked, they had a throwable, etc. He couldn't get them for anything.

He then proceeded to give ME a $165 ticket for fishing without a license. I'd made about five casts with my brother-in-law's POS rod that was on the boat, and the EPO had seen me make one of them.

So, eff them.

 

[one-eyed Jack]

The old joke. A guy comes in from fishing and his wife takes the boat for a ride. The warden stops her and writes a ticket for fishing without a license. She says her husband left the rod in the boat but she was not using it. The warden says "Well ,you have all the equipment to fish". She says that she is going to charge him with rape. He says "I didn't touch you". She says "Well you have all the equipment". Jack.

 

[pupchow]

I

Eff ME EPO or whatever they are.

Brother-in-law owned a pontoon boat at their Sebago home. Took a bunch of us out, and we made our way up some river, and were drifting back to the lake. EPO pulled him over b/c the registration sticker on the side was from the last year. SIL had re-registered it that week but the decals weren't there yet. Because the cop couldn't write them up for the registration he made sure there were enough life jackets, horn worked, they had a throwable, etc. He couldn't get them for anything.

He then proceeded to give ME a $165 ticket for fishing without a license. I'd made about five casts with my brother-in-law's POS rod that was on the boat, and the EPO had seen me make one of them.

So, eff them.

I fish freshwater in Maine maybe once a year, while paddling down the Saco. One-day non-resident license at WalMart, about $12. Cheap insurance.

 

[bfm]

Can I see it?





Just asking.

 

[whacko]

I was watching old North Woods Law reruns yesterday on TV. The Maine years. The episodes were full of "we're gunna git deez dem people and tickickem!"

You watch it today and it's all flowers and rainbows with minimal tickets and arrests. I think that game wardens realized they were getting boned by the show. I mean, they have a somewhat bad rep to begin with. NWL wasn't helping. Now they are Officer Friendly.

I was at a pheasant hunt several years ago. GW was at the parking lot as people filtered back in. Instead of a smile and asking to see hunting lic's, he announced in an aggressive tone that he wanted fishing lic's, DL's and LTC's for EVERYONE in each party. Dude. Don't be a tool. Please. It's not helping you do your job. Let's try this: Smile!

They aren't all like that though. Ice fishing years ago up at lake pearl in nh.....we got checked by a CO......my brother had bought his license the day before we drove up to fish and left it on the kitchen table. He told the CO this and the guy was great about it. He took all of my brothers info then handed him his business card and told him you have till tomorrow at noon to fax me a copy.....if it's not on the fax machine by noon I'm going to proceed with the ticket. But he did tell my brother to pull his tip ups for the rest of the day. He sent the fax next day and got a call from the co later that day that he was all set.

The way I see it is the co had every reason to pinch my brother but just a little slack did well to promote the agency as a good public service. My brother had a license....he just didn't have it with him. If he had not purchased a license I would have expected and supported the co giving him a ticket. The purpose of having him fax it by noon put the burden on my brother to make it right......the co could have easily looked him up in the system but chose to let my brother fix it. The faxed license proved my brother had purchased the license prior to actually fishing so no harm no foul.

 

[whacko]

Eff ME EPO or whatever they are.

Brother-in-law owned a pontoon boat at their Sebago home. Took a bunch of us out, and we made our way up some river, and were drifting back to the lake. EPO pulled him over b/c the registration sticker on the side was from the last year. SIL had re-registered it that week but the decals weren't there yet. Because the cop couldn't write them up for the registration he made sure there were enough life jackets, horn worked, they had a throwable, etc. He couldn't get them for anything.

He then proceeded to give ME a $165 ticket for fishing without a license. I'd made about five casts with my brother-in-law's POS rod that was on the boat, and the EPO had seen me make one of them.

So, eff them.

So how many casts are you allowed before its considered fishing?

 

[Jason Flare]

They aren't all like that though. Ice fishing years ago up at lake pearl in nh.....we got checked by a CO......my brother had bought his license the day before we drove up to fish and left it on the kitchen table. He told the CO this and the guy was great about it. He took all of my brothers info then handed him his business card and told him you have till tomorrow at noon to fax me a copy.....if it's not on the fax machine by noon I'm going to proceed with the ticket. But he did tell my brother to pull his tip ups for the rest of the day. He sent the fax next day and got a call from the co later that day that he was all set.

The way I see it is the co had every reason to pinch my brother but just a little slack did well to promote the agency as a good public service. My brother had a license....he just didn't have it with him. If he had not purchased a license I would have expected and supported the co giving him a ticket. The purpose of having him fax it by noon put the burden on my brother to make it right......the co could have easily looked him up in the system but chose to let my brother fix it. The faxed license proved my brother had purchased the license prior to actually fishing so no harm no foul.

Except that he didn’t get to fish.

 

[whacko]

Except that he didn’t get to fish.

Yeah but it was my brother's fault. No biggie

 

[StevieP]

So how many casts are you allowed before its considered fishing?

$165 ticket for it though? If I was an EPO I'd give people the chance to buy a license via his phone app before I wrote a ticket like that.

 

[Jason Flare]

Yeah but it was my brother's fault. No biggie

The cop didn’t really trust that your brother had a license.

I would have let him fish on his honor that he had a license and thrown the book at him if/when I found out he didn’t have a license and had lied to me.

Your brother bought a license and didn’t get to fish. That to me isn’t a win.

 

[whacko]

$165 ticket for it though? If I was an EPO I'd give people the chance to buy a license via his phone app before I wrote a ticket like that.

I'd have given a guy the option to buy as well.

My point speaks to your comment on how many casts you took. Why does that even matter? Instead of stating "I only cast 4 or 5 times".....just say you got caught fishing without a license......cuz that is what happened. He saw you cast once.....an epo or gw isn't going to observe someone all day long. One observed cast by an epo or gw is plenty to consider it fishing based on the reality of the situation.

But if I were an epo or gw I'd generally cut people a break and give them the option to buy on their cell phone right then and there.

 

[whacko]

The cop didn’t really trust that your brother had a license.

I would have let him fish on his honor that he had a license and thrown the book at him if/when I found out he didn’t have a license and had lied to me.

Your brother bought a license and didn’t get to fish. That to me isn’t a win.

He didn't believe my brother.....and why should he? I'm sure the co has heard every excuse in the book

 

[Rob Boudrie]

But if I were an epo or gw I'd generally cut people a break and give them the option to buy on their cell phone right then and there.

You don't know what pressures, if any, the EPOs are under to produce; what orders they have as to when an how to use their discretion; etc. (and neither do I).

As on NJ cop told me - "The gun laws suck, I don't agree with them, but I won't just counsel and let a technical violator go unless there is no record of the encounter since I will not risk my pension for anyone".

 

[whacko]

You don't know what pressures, if any, the EPOs are under to produce; what orders they have as to when an how to use their discretion; etc. (and neither do I).

As on NJ cop told me - "The gun laws suck, I don't agree with them, but I won't just counsel and let a technical violator go unless there is no record of the encounter since I will not risk my pension for anyone".

Makes sense.
And for the record......cutting breaks on it is what I say I'd probably do......but I don't feel a epo or gw giving a ticket to someone fishing without a license is automatically an a**h***......the licenses are there to fund the resource.....and the ones that fish without a license are just gambling on not getting pinched.

 

[robjax]

yeah, I would assume anyone in law enforcement can but my guess is real cops couldn't give two craps about anyone fishing. Environmental and fish and game types would be all over that.

 

[Jason Flare]

He didn't believe my brother.....and why should he? I'm sure the co has heard every excuse in the book

You’re not understanding my posts.

 

[whacko]

You’re not understanding my posts.

Enlighten me.