DERBY MAN COPS $8K PENALTY FOR ILLEGAL MUD CRABBING

A day’s mud crabbing cost a 70-year-old Derby man more than $8,000 in fines, penalties and court costs.

Fisheries officers told Derby Magistrate’s Court they attempted to stop the man to inspect the boat he was towing last December, but he continued to drive around Derby with the officers following for nearly an hour before police intervened.

When they inspected the vessel, officers found 19 mud crab pieces and a fish trap. 

As the daily bag limit for mud crabs is five and they must be landed whole, officers siezed the man’s dingy, nets, trap and the crab pieces.

Last week the magistrate told him it was “highly likely” he would lose his boat and licence permanently if anything like this happened again.