Fisherman's Tales

The Ones that Actually Happen!

Double Jeopardy - The Bailiff gets a bust, twice!

Here is a story, that i will never forget.

Once upon a time i was on leave from the Army and my father and i decided to go fishing one weekend.

We decided on Trawsfynned reservoir, a large lake in North Wales that supply's water to a big power plant, some of you may know it.
So we set off at around 4 o'clock in the morning (as we live in cheshire, 100 miles away) to get there for first light.
My father fished the lake regularly, and he knew it held a lot of Rainbows and a huge head of Rudd.
We were after the Rudd as my father had filled his keep net on several occasions there.
So we bought our day tickets at the shop in the village, got some advice on the lake, and how the fishing was at the time and headed off to wet our lines.
We decided to fish the warm water area of the lake, where the power station pumped out water back in to the lake. So we started fishing and the Rudd and Roach were soon gracing the net.

Then a guy came walking along the bank and came down to us. It was the Bailiff doing his usual round. He asked my father, then me for our permits and rod licence's.

I produced both mine and he said "this rod licence does not cover this fishery". I was a little confused and asked him what he mean't.

He said that i needed a "Welsh" water authority rod licence and mine was a "North West" water authority licence. (This was when the rod licence's were divided in to areas of Britain i.e. North west, South East, Welsh, North East etc etc.) I never realized this before we went fishing, but however, my father had a Welsh WA licence because he fished there regularly.

I explained this was a genuine mistake and explained that i was on leave from the Army, so i wasn't getting to do much fishing, but fancied a day out with my father. He wasn't buying it and he took my details. He accused me of poaching the trout from the lake. My keep net full of Rudd & Roach plus my tub of sweetcorn as bait still didn't convince him that i wasn't after Trout.
So we left and went home early, quite disappointed that he was so harsh on me.

But we accepted that he had a job to do. About 6 weeks later my father rang me in Northern Ireland saying that i had to go to court in Llandudno (Wales) over the incident. I couldn't believe it!!! I told my Platoon Commander about the summons, and he rang the the authorities concerned. He explained my situation and that i was a serving soldier in Ulster. They decided to take the hearing without me present, which resulted in a £540 pounds fine (7500:-), bloody marvelous!!!.

That was a lot of money for me then as a private soldier. And to add insult to injury i had to appear in front of the Regimental Commanding Officer and stand trial with the army as well. (because if you are found guilty of a civilian offence, the Army must try you aswell, so you get your butt kicked TWICE).

I convinced myself that he would laugh at this incident and throw me out of his office for wasting his time. NO he found me guilty of poaching, told me that this would not be tolerated in his Regiment and threw me in jail for 1 week. Without pay i hasten to add! So for a simple mistake i lost around 700 pounds ( 10 000:-) and spent a week in jail where all murderers, muggers, thieves and alleged poachers are considered equal.
But the story made all the other lads in the nick laugh.

So if the Bailiff of Trawsfynned in 1992 reads this, thanks a lot mate!!!!!!! You *#¤"#¤¤#%%****!!!!

Chris Thornhill