A man from northwestern Saskatchewan man has been fined $19,360 for the illegal sale of fish.
Leon Morin pleaded guilty in Buffalo Narrows Provincial Court last week to four charges under the Saskatchewan Fisheries Act and Regulations.
Environment Ministry Conservation Officer Gary Provencher says Morin unlawfully sold fish caught for both commercial and subsistence purposes.
“He is a licensed commercial fisherman, or was up until this case and he also has Aboriginal rights so he has the right to set subsistence fishing nets”.
Provencher says tips from the public were received in 2012, and the complaints were serious enough to raise concerns about walleye stocks in the Buffalo Narrows area so an undercover special investigative unit was brought in.
“It was on about four separate occasions that he sold fish, probably in the neighbourhood of one hundred to two hundred pounds each time, so it was substantial”.
Morin received a two-year commercial fishing license prohibition and is also required to report and subsistence fishing to the Ministry of the Environment.