Canada's crack down

[shu9265]

I don't know how many of you guys have seen about the Canadian Border Patrol cracking down on US Boaters that venture into Canadian waters but here is just one tale of the tactic's they are now employing;

One poor guy went across the border to fish, had ALL the required licenses, he DID NOT go to shore, anchor, or contact Customs.

They came to his boat while he was fishing and placed him under arrest for failing to make land fall, and then notify customs that he was going to fish in Canadian border waters. He was fined $1000.00 cash on the spot, or lose his boat.

Oh Baby's Whitby Experience...The Good, the Bad and The Ugly Boarder Crossing

Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:59:55 EDT

This is gonna be a novel guys....enjoy some of our highs and lows

Thursday: My 12 year old son Justin and I met Matt and his dad Steve in the am and we launched from the Oak and headed across the lake in a fog. There was a sense of excitement and anticipation in the air as we started the almost 50 mile trip across the lake to Port Whitby to fish the Whitby Big Jon KOTL event. None of us had ever fished there before, nor had we ever crossed the lake by sea, so we were all looking forward to fishing new waters and seeing new sights.

As we crossed into Canadian water, we slowed down and decided to troll into port. We set rods over 350 fow and trolled NE. Not much was happining and the screen was blank, but at 325 fow the corner rigger down 67 ft fires and I jumped to the rod and it was game on.....welcome to Canada boyz That rod had our only meat rig in our spread....a mag Hi Ho Silver MC Rocket in a Big Weenie Green Chrome meat rig. The king burned out 500 plus and then we were just in a stalemate for awhile. Eventually, he tired and we worked him to the boat and we scooped up our first king of the trip at around 10 am. It would take us 12 hours to get the fish to the weigh station (details to come) , but even so the king tipped the scales at almost 28 lbs.

Justin got a turn whille we were over about 275fow, and pulled in what turned ot to be a 5lb brown on a spoon we had out hoping for a steelhead. Not another touch would happen until we hit 140 fow. We took a shot on the 300 copper and Steve got his turn on what appeared to be another great king, but it shook the hook. We had several more good fish on before heading into port and we were all stoked at what could be an awesome weekend. Here is Justin laying into another huge king that would eventually get free when his shirt got wrapped in the handle of the reel He was a great sport the whole weekend !!

The Bad We pulled into port and headed to the marina to get our slip number and gas up. We filled the empty tank and went to put the boat into the slip we were assigned. We immediatly were greeted by some fellow tournament friends & teams we knew and said our hellos. We knew we had to go call in, so shortly after we got to the dock, the four of us headed to the office to call customs and check in. It was a long walk, and our 5th teammate Jeff had arrived with his truck, so we carried our cooler with the single king in it to take and weigh in for the Pay Everyday Derby. We dropped the cooler off at the truck, which was in route to the phone, and called customs. The Phone call took at least 10 minutes, maybe longer, as Matt was put on hold for a bit. We all had our passports ready, expecting we each needed to speak on the phone. It was a long walk from the boat to the office, and would probably take 5 + minutes to walk at a regular pace. There never seemed to be any choice but to have all 4 go at the same time.

Well, the officer on the phone only spoke to Matt, and then instructed us to all go to the boat because some customs officers would be there to speak with us. As we walked down the dock, we saw a male and female customs agent at the boat. It became obvious from the very first moment that things were not going to go well. The male officer seemed to be the "senior" officer, and had a MAJOR attitude towards us and begun grilling us as to why we all 4 left the boat. He instructed us that only the captain could leave the vessel to call in, and that he had to do that immediatly upon arrival!

He told us how he had seen our boat and that it was not occupied for at least 10 or 15 minutes, and what were we doing all that time? We told him we had to walk to the phone and then the call took awhile because we were put on hold. This guy wanted nothing to do with our reasons....only that we didn't follow procedure. He tried to tell me my 12 year old son had to have a passport (not true), and that only having a birth certificate was not enough and that my passport card was not a legal passport. Again....there was nothing that could be said, as you could tell we were being railroaded and if it wasn't one thing they would just find something else.

After some very intese moments and a boat search, they took our identification and told us to stay put while they went back to their mini van. When they returned awhile later, the woman officer instructed me that myself and my son cleared customs and were free to go get some food or a drink. I said I would wait for my crew, in which the male officer said they would be awhile. He turned to Matt and Steve, and said I don't want to do this on the dock, follow us to our car. From that point, I was no longer involved and uncertain "exactly" what was said. Matt told me that the first thing the male officer said was "OK, here is what we are going to do. We are siezing your boat..........then the officer left a long pause for shock value......OR, you can pay a thousand dollar fine right now". Beyond that, Matt would have to tell you what was said, as I stayed back at the boat. I finally couldn't stand it and had to know what was going on, so I walked to the customs van and that is when Matt told me they were fined $1000. I think the "official" reason for the fine ended up being that we all left the boat and took the coolor with us.

The male officer then told us to enjoy the tournament and that we should not let this keep us from having a good time. He said that twice, and it took all my strength to not punch that smug jackass right in the face. The only reason it didn't turn out worse is that we all knew we had to just keep our mouths shut and take the abuse. I felt like it was my first night in prison and bubba just dropped the soap in front of me and said "pick that up boy". You just know you're gonna get screwed one way or the other ;(

OK, so over 2 hours later we are all released and it's 7:30. Still enough time to run to tightlines to weigh in our Salmon for The Pay Everyday Derby. We get there and it tips the scale at 27.8 (10 hours after it was caught) and things start to look up, as we win the daily prize and get $200 bucks back.

Friday....The Good We all awake in a somber mood, still stinging from the day before. Somehow, everything had changed and we no longer had that excitement we felt on the ride over. We knew we could make everything better by going out Friday and catching the big fish. We were on a mission that would not be denied......to get our $1000 bucks back :devil: . We headed 6 miles east and would troll east all day. Within our first hour we put a 27 lb king in the boat. That fish took a Big Weenie spook fly behind a blue angel spin doctor (that fly has been sooo hot this year!). Soon after, the rigger fires with the same MC Rocket/ Big Weenie meat rig that took yesterdays big fish. When it hit the deck, we all high fived, but we never weighed the fish. At weigh in, we were last in line. One by one we got to thinking just maybe we had big fish. Pressman was in the lead with a 28. We knew our smaller fish was over 26, so we figured high 29 or low 30 for the big one. When they opened the box, they knew we had 28 beat and we started to cheer. Then Ivan said Oh Baby....30.2 and we erupted with cheers, hugs and high fives you would only understand knowing what we had been through the day before. I am sure some guys thought geez....it's only big fish friday guys But you know what, we did it, and man did it feel great!! I will cherish that moment forever! Even our second biggest fish would have been third or fourth. Our reward....$1000. We also won our second pay everyday derby in a row for another $200.

The smiles say it all, eh? Hey Canada.....kiss our A$$

The ugly Shotgun start Sat morning, we had no choice but to go east were we picked on the big fish the day before, even though 95% of the pack went west. We started out great, but our kings transformed into steelhead overnight and we never found our fish we had on Friday. We learned our lesson and next time we will listen to the majority. We only found 3 kings and found ourselves out of it with no hope of a sunday comeback.

On Sunday, we head west with the rest looking to at least have some fun. We had little to fish for, so we ran a test program for the first couple hours with some new products and some untested rigs because we knew there were fish around and it was a great time to learn something new. We took about 10 shots with only about a 10% hook up ratio before we could make some adjustments. We then put a couple fish in the boat before doubling up on HUGE kings. Both were 30 lb class. One on a crazy fish MC Rocket and one on a Big Weenie Proctologist fly. But....as the weekend would go for us, one got into the copper that was out on an in-line board and set itself free, and the other would eventually chew through the 25 lb line and bite us off after a 20 minute battle. The air got sucked out from us and we just never recouperated.

It was a tuff end for us, and a finish that left us embarrassed and shaking our heads in disbelief. We had such high hopes, but in the end too many things worked against us and we lost our focus. We did win $1400 though, so at least that helped out a little.

_________________

Rod

Team Lucky Enuff

http://www.teamluckyenuff.com

[Line Dancin]

and that folks is why you will NEVER see me in canadian waters or on their shores. Went there once in my lifetime and never again they are ^&%$#@!S over there. I have done some world travleing in my llife with scuba equipment and never had so many problems just trying to go to a stinking casino for my inlaws anniversary. Never again.

[shu9265]

It used to be a "given" that as long as we had a Canadian Lic. and were on Border Waters, that we were allowed to fish without checking in with customs, UNLESS you anchored or set foot on shore.

But, it seems that as they say, "the times they are a changin' "

I have not set foot on Canadian soil in many years, and now that this is starting, I will not be on Canadian waters again any time soon.

[strik]

good to here you did well with the fishing

hopefull this changes soon it getting insane

take care all

strik

[j1musser]

Some nice fish on the lines but what a croc. Turned an unforgettable trip to a i wish i could forget parts trip. At least ya came out after the fine. Woulda prob paid for the whole trip otherwise.

[silver one]

Bill

Thanks for sharing this. Ive made up my mind and will keep my Money and myself anyware but Canada. Its a beautiful piece of earth but if that is how canadian government wants to act then to hell with them. If it were not for the united States, Canada would not exsist. All the post I have read,it's very clear that this is about Money.

[steeliebob]

It is bad enough that we had to support the Vancouver Queen for 8 years and she sent a good number of jobs and a ton of money to Canada. Now they want to sieze all of our fishing boats. This is probably a dozen posts I have read about this happening this summer. Time to contact your politicians and demand that it stop. If it does not stop then get cross boarder work visas cancelled, that will get their attention real quick. I for one would rather wake up in Afganistan than in Canada. Cancelling cross boarder work visas would open up a ton of jobs here in Michigan alone. Mabey something that should have been done years ago.

[Priority1]

Big Shu, Quite a story man. ^5s. They sure weren't being neighborly. I hope some of our Canadian members can rattle some of their politicians and smooth out some of these lumps. Maybe our BP is jacking them also???

[shu9265]

Here are a few links to Local Newspaper articles.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20110622/NEWS02/306229942/-1/news

http://blog.syracuse.com/sports/2011/06/baldwinsville_mans_day_of_fish.html

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20110625/NEWS02/306259919

[shu9265]

I'm not sure it would do any good, but, seems if we all contacted our reps in congress and let them know we are NOT happy with this situation, and we demand that they Stop acting like little children and fix this mess and come to some kind of agreement with Canada concerning use of Border Waters things would be a lot less hostile.

[steeliebob]

Get this information to as many fishermen as possible. Ask them to cancel any canadian hunting and fishing trips and to put this information on as many posts as possible. This is a bunch of bull and the people being harassed are law abiding citizens. No more Labatts Blue or Cnadian Club. A big problem with this is that there are bouy markers in places and in other places it is a good guess. In a fog or windy weather you could get popped for just being close or it is entirely possible that their boarder patrol could pop you in US waters.

[shu9265]

Here is an UPDATE on the Border Crossing situation:

Canadian officials sticking with controversial border policy

$1000.00 or your boat..... Your Choice

http://blog.syracuse.com/outdoors/20...ence_folo.html

The Canadian government has decided to let people from the U.S. fishing in Canadian waters check in by cell phone, the office of north country Congressman Bill Owens announced Friday morning.

http://www.wwnytv.com/news/local/Bre...125217289.html

Story Published: Jul 8, 2011 at 2:17 PM EDT

Story Updated: Jul 8, 2011 at 6:49 PM EDT

[Adam Bomb]

Thanks for the info