this is kind of ironic that the guy who attempts to be as ethical and law abiding as possible and tries to tell people who fish with him not to break the law will get a ticket because of a mistake without even getting a warning on a first offense. This is exactly what happened to me yesterday when fishing at Branford supply ponds. Did not know that it was supposed to get trout stocked and was closed nor did I know it was even in the book... I was out there once before and saw a couple of guys fishing and thought to give it a shot sometime. so I made the mistake of not looking in the book before going fishing there. I was not even fishing for trout and had no clue there were trout in there. Hell, I even told the officer when she asked me "do you fish here often" that I usually fish at saltonstall but it is closed until opening day so I came out here to try. This is before she told me Branford supply pond was closed because of trout. If I was planning on poaching, i would have gone out and poached on saltonstall where I probably would never get caught and probably would walk away with walleye’s, bass, trout and crappies. So, a buffet of poached fish, instead of just trout which would have been much more exciting. I don’t poach however and I did not have any fish on me as I try to practice cpr and do my share of trying to conserve resources. All of this to me, when there are people out there without a license filling buckets of illegal size and type fish all day long upon who I have called several times to DEP in order to try and help them enforce laws.
Anyways, i am going to try and plead not guilty to see if there is a chance that they will let me get away considering this is my first offense, but i am concerned that if they do convict me regardless what are the chances of me loosing my fishing and hunting license?