Man fined $14,500 for illegal fish sales

Catch came from protected area on Canoe Lake

A Canoe Narrows man has been fined $14,500 and had his truck forfeited to the Crown after he pleaded guilty to violating provincial fisheries regulations.

Richard Desjardin, 63, entered a guilty plea in a Canoe Narrows courtroom to three counts of marketing fish without a licence, commercial fishing without a licence, fishing in a closed area and obstruction, the province said in a media release on Friday.

Another Canoe Narrows man, Donald Iron, 60, was previously tried and convicted of three counts of selling fish and three counts of selling fish without a licence in connection with the same investigation.

He was fined $1,080. Fish trafficking charges were laid against four people after a Ministry of Environment investigation launched in 2016.

Charges against two other people were stayed after Desjardin entered his guilty plea.

The probe was launched after conservation officers from Beauval received a tip indicating two people were illegally selling fish, the province said in the release.

Undercover officers bought fish from the two people, who did not have a commercial licence to fish or a licence to sell the fish; one of them was selling a “significant amount more than the other,” the release stated.

The officers were able to buy more than 200 walleye.

Most of the fish were caught illegally in an area of Canoe Lake that is closed to fishing to protect a walleye spawning ground.

The closure, which has been in place for more than 20 years, “is fully supported by the Canoe Lake First Nation,” the release noted.

Walleye populations in Canoe Lake fell in the 1970s and 1980s and it took years for the fish population to recover, resulting in extra measures to prevent illegal sale of fish caught from Canoe Lake.