R v. Fitzpatrick

This case involved a father and son with long line crab fishing vessels who fished together. Since only the father’s vessel was equipped with a power hauler, they surreptitiously used the father’s vessel for hauling both sets of traps and then transferred some of the crab to the son’ s boat to be landed by the son. Applying the broad definition of "fishing" from the Frederich Gerring Jr. (1807), 27 S.C.R. 271 and other cases, the court held that when the father was hauling his son’s gear he was fishing. Since he was not licensed to fish that gear, he was fishing illegally. In addition, when he transferred the fish that he had hauled at sea to his son’s boat, he breached a licence condition that require him to have a dockside observer present when offloading crab.