A WARRNAMBOOL crayfishing deckhand caught using professional gear in the Hopkins River has been fined $500 and banned from amateur fishing for three months.
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Shane Netherway, 50, of Bates Road, pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court to two counts of using professional fishing equipment without authority - a homemade long line and a drum net.
Fisheries officers said that on April 8 this year Netherway arrived at a friend's property near Allansford which had access to a remote part of the Hopkins River.
Netherway made a 50-metre longline with 10 hooks, baiting it with mullet and worms before setting it in the estuary.
Over the next three days he rebaited it and checked the line.
On April 11 a recreational fisherman paddling up the river found the longline and released two bream back into the water.
There was also an eel caught, which he could not be release.
Netherway also made a drum net out of wire mesh which he baited with mackeral and set in the river.
Fisheries officers arrived and the illegal equipment was removed from the river.
Magistrate Peter Mellas said Netherway had been selfish, explaining that when his father had a fish shop years ago there was that many fish people didn't know what to do with them.
But, that was no longer the case and strict rules were in place to protect the resource.
"This is not stupidity, it's selfishness," he said.
"You think the rules do not apply to you like everyone else," he said.
Netherway admitted a lack of judgement and unsuccessfully requested the amateur fishing ban be reduced.