#Angling - There's been another successful prosecution for Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), this time against two people for coarse fishing offences on Whitewood Lake in Co Meath.
Grigorij Charlamov and Liudmila Baseva were convicted at Navan District Court on 10 January, respectively given community service and the Probation Act, while IFI was awarded €3,840 in expenses for bringing these cases.
In August 2013, Charlamov and Baseva were seen acting suspiciously at Whitewood Lake in Kilmainham Wood and were later apprehended by fisheries officers Dermot Wynne and Brendan Cusack.
The duo were found to have a boat, nets and 99 coarse fish in their possession which consisted of bream, roach, rudd and perch. This was in breach of the coarse fish byelaw which allows an angler to have four coarse fish under 25cm in their possession.
Charlamov, with an address in Bray, Co Wicklow, pleaded guilty to two charges. Judge Grainne Malone convicted him under Section 285A of the 1959 Fisheries Act, for using a boat as an aid to the commission of an offence and breaching the coarse fish byelaw of 2006.
Judge Malone noted that Charlamov had been well prepared, travelled from Bray and the consequences for him were therefore more significant. She gave him community service and he was ordered to pay costs of €1,920 to IFI within four months.
Baseva, also with an address in Bray, Co Wicklow, pleaded guilty to the breach of the coarse fish byelaw. Judge Malone convicted her under the bylaw, gave her the Probation Act and ordered her to pay costs of €1,920 to IFI within six months.
Whitewood Lake is a notable coarse fishery in Co Meath containing stocks of roach, bream, hybrids and pike. Many of the bream caught in this lake in 2013 were over 5 lbs in weight with an average age of 8-10 years, and very valuable from an angling perspective.
