$20,000 catch

A commercial fisherman has been fined more than $20,000 for illegal fishing activity in the Vasse Estuary last month.

Nicholas Lucas, of Bunbury, sent an endorsed plea of guilty to Busselton Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.

Fisheries officers prosecuted the man after he used a boat outside its licence conditions to fish in the protected estuary and left nets unattended.

The court heard the man had used two nets to catch mullet during an evening in September and knew he was meant to stay with the conditions but had gone back to Bunbury and not returned to the area until the next morning.

The man’s licence stated he must stay with 100m of the nets but he had told officers he had boat motor problems and returned to Bunbury to swap boats and then had fallen asleep.

He returned to the nets the next morning when he was apprehended by police and fisheries officers.

At the time of the offence, supervising fisheries and marine officer Kevin Johnson said the man’s apprehension was the result of a joint operation by fisheries officers, police and wildlife officers The 954 mullet the man caught in his catch were forfeited and he was fined a penalty in relation to their weight.

The court also had the option to impose a penalty based on the number of fish caught, which would have totalled $28,620, the court heard.

As there were two offences from the same incident, one related to the boat licence breach, the other for leaving the net unattended, the weight penalty of $9736.65 was applied twice.

Magistrate Robert Lawrence asked the prosecution if they intended to apply the same penalty to the man twice, which is in accordance with the Fisheries Act.

“What about the sentencing act?

"It said someone should not be punished twice for the same offence," he said.

The magistrate issued a $1000 global fine for the two charges.

He then ordered the penalty based on catch weight be paid for both offences, taking the total to $20,473.30.

A separate investigation was being conducted by wildlife officers from the Department of Environment and Conservation after 11 water birds were found trapped in the netting.