August 13, 2013 — BELFAST, Maine — The smelts were just a red herring.
That was the determination of Judge Susan Sparaco Tuesday afternoon in Belfast District Court, after overseeing the criminal trial of two Hancock County fishermen who were charged with fishing for elvers without a license. The two men said they’d been fishing for smelts with their finely-meshed dip nets one night this April in the Goose River in Belfast, but Sparaco didn’t buy it.
“The story just does not stand up in my mind,” she said before finding the men guilty of all charges. “It really defies credibility that they would travel so far to go to a river not known for smelting.”
Ralph E. Fowler, Jr., 41, of Franklin, and Gregory A. Trundy, 49, of Hancock, may be the first in the state to face a criminal trial for charges related to fishing for the tiny, lucrative glass eels. Fishing for elvers without a license became a criminal offense on April 23, the same day that Matthew Talbot and Wesley Dean of the Maine Marine Patrol spotted Fowler and Trundy fishing with headlamps and dip nets in the Belfast river.
Sparaco sentenced the men to pay fines of $4,250 each but did not sentence them to any jail time. The class D crime of elver fishing without a license carries a mandatory $2,000 fine. Additionally, they were charged with fishing for elvers during a closed period, which also carries a mandatory $2,000 fine and elver fishing while standing in the water, for which they were fined $250 each.
Defense attorney Ferdinand Slater of Ellsworth said that his clients will appeal their convictions.
“They were fishing for smelts, not elvers,” he said after the trial concluded. “The evidence, in my opinion, doesn’t support a conviction of beyond reasonable doubt of fishing for elvers.”
Read the full story at the Bangor Daily News