A Florida Fish and Wildlife Officer was patrolling the Lighthouse Park boat ramp in St. Augustine, Florida when she contacted vessel occupants at the ramp to conduct a resource inspection. How y'all doing today? Good. How's it going? >> Good. How you guys doing? Y'all go offshore? Cold? Yeah. You know, I was surprised when I came through this way. I'm like, so many boats. I It's freaking cold. It was supposed It's always You always add an an extra few seconds and add an extra few miles an hour for the wind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was supposed to be light winds. We left the truck this morning and we were like, oh, How far out did y'all go? Uh we made it about 35 miles. >> 35? >> Yeah. You doing trolling or I can't see if you're bottom fishing. >> Uh we were bottom fishing. >> Bottom fishing? We brought some trolling rods, but we didn't get out there where the wahoo were at. No. Mhm. Y'all got any reef fish or bottom fish? >> We got mangrove Cool. and and mutton snapper and red grouper. Okay. And then everything else the sharks ate. Everything else sharks ate? Everything. Everything? >> And we got heads like this. Yeah, I've seen even the mangoes like that. Last I was at last weekend or the weekend before. I can't remember. They'll blend together. There was one like good offshore day and a lot of good mangoes and muttons came out from the inlet. >> Yeah. We had a nice one like this. Yeah. >> ate come out from under the boat out from nowhere. Yep, that's it. That's cold. And then he came back for the head and almost took the rod. >> think twice about putting your hand in the water. Every fish that we caught today I mean we we were catching good, but >> Yeah. Yeah. Shark Uh We just stopped. Yeah. Did y'all keep anything or Yep. We got Y'all got some? I'll just I'll just check whatever y'all got. Still in the boat or y'all float already? Okay. Appreciate it. Yeah, it's a shame cuz we should have had a whole lot more. >> more. I remember you guys were in our boat one time and it was freezing here. Yeah. Right before COVID. Right before COVID. And they were doing the safety check and all that up there. I remember it was like so cold we cooked fish. Yeah, I don't like I don't like the cold, man. I'LL GO OUT SHORE, BUT >> ON YOUR BOAT LATELY. You guys kept the red grouper. The You guys kept the red grouper? Grouper's closed as of Jan- Gag grouper's closed. Every Every grouper is closed as of January 1st. I mean, double-check, but that's the way it's always been. They did a gag grouper close early this year cuz of >> Well, I thought gag grouper was closed. >> Let me Let me double-check. I use my own words. Ain't my own words. >> Oh, boy. Yeah, every um January 1st every year, January to the beginning of May, all groupers closed. They did an early group- They They always do Well, they don't, but this year they did an early closure on the gag because they said the numbers were off. But yeah, every year January 1st every single grouper species closes. We didn't realize that. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's It's always been like that, so I There's not even enough meat on it for Yeah. All right, what else you got? A mutton? A mangrove and a lane. >> look at the size of that lane. Nice lane. Yeah. That's a nice lane. All right, who caught the the red? That was me. Okay. You got your driver's license on you? And this your boat? It is my boat. >> Okay. Excuse me, bye. Nice mutton. How big is that mutton? 18. 18. You see anyone else bottom fishing out where y'all are No. And then just your your boat registration, too. Seen somebody kept trolling around us. Yeah. I'm waiting for them to go. I wonder if I'll see any any wahoo today. Is that documented or registered? >> Documented. Documented. Let's see. It's the trailer and then you got your documentation. Okay. >> That's the registration. I'm going to hand you the gripper and you can just lay it down. I don't want to lay it on the gunnel cuz uh Your boat looks clean and I don't want to get it dirty. Yeah. Where do you want it? Just put you can just put it down on the ground for a minute. Okay. And I'm going to measure this on my check it stick, okay? Cuz that my looks like it's 16 and 1/2. I don't want to give you the benefit of the doubt. I have a measuring tape in my pocket, but our check it stick is the official one, all right? You pinch the tails, right? Or pinching tails, that's why I want to give you the benefit, you know? Yeah. Yeah, you you measure it. You measure it. You measure it. I did. Okay, I'm just going to get the check it stick. I'm still over 17. 17 and a quarter. Make sure I know when it gets rough, it's hard, but >> Yeah. >> before you put them in the box, lay them down and get a good measurement. >> what? Next time it's it's not even worth it. Just just I did. I held them up on the We have one on the transit and of course it was rough seas, so I looked at the minute, but Thanks. All right. Are you Are Who's claiming the mutton? That's me. That's you. Okay. You got your ID on you? Uh yes. Okay. And the groupers one of the um A lot of our state laws and federal laws don't always mirror each other, right? The groupers one that mirrors, so it's closed January 1st every year and it reopens May 1st. All grouper, yep. Sometimes in November the end of December, they'll do um closures for specific species because the number the allotment is already met. And they take that into account from like the Gulf side where they're required to the commercial guys are required to tell exactly what they harvest. >> Right. >> So if that harvest is met, they'll close it down recreationally and commercially. So this year it was met on gag, and that's why they closed it. I think it was like the first weekend in December. >> they closed that early. >> Yeah. Are you Just your driver's license if you got that? Oh. Yeah. Thank you. All right, cool. You don't check fishing license for me? Or is it a half >> 6341, go ahead. I just checked I already checked on the computer. They They check it for me. So unless our our database is down you can't hear it, but she's talking in my ear. >> used the driver's license. Oh, yeah. 10-4. Yeah, so when they run your boat, they'll tell me um you're registered to the boat, so they told me you got a fishing license, so. And then mine they'll do through the driver's license. It's 6341, can you 10-9? You cut out. 10-4, if you can open up a signal 62 grouper and then just put those priors in that call, please. All right. If you guys want to so we're not blocking, just pull out out of the way of everyone. Have any of you guys got any warnings, fish, anything from us before? Tickets, anything like that? Never? 30 years, no. >> 30 years? You never? Mhm. Any like uh warnings for safety or anything like that? No. No, okay. No, I'm going to break the law. All right, just give me a few minutes. Y'all can just hang out near your truck, all right? So don't >> need my driver's license? >> Yep, I'll I'll give it I'll give it back to you when I'm done, all right? Yep. All right. I gave you a warning for the mutton snapper, okay? I know Caesar rough, but you got to make sure before you're you're before you're home, done fishing, coming back in, >> to show you that. >> double triple check it, okay? >> Yeah. You know, for sure. I'm not going to give you a hard time over an inch. Just that's a one-time free pass, okay? Appreciate it. All right. You did get a citation for the red grouper out of season, okay? So what I did um every fish violation is a court appearance, okay? So I I doubt you want to have a misdemeanor on your on your record, so tell the judge, explain, "Sorry, I did not know." Majority of the time they do what's called adjudication withheld, which they assess a small fee, it doesn't show that you were charged with a misdemeanor on your record. So that's why I gave you the court appearance in lieu of just charging you with the fine. >> Okay. So That's that's appreciated. Thank you. No problem. Um you guys have this There's an app called Fish Rules. Have you ever heard of it? No. Okay, it's a free app. So, it's great because it updates all of our rules, it updates all the federal rules. So, if you open it when you're going out the inlet, it'll like if you were to open it today, it would tell you, "Yeah, red grouper's closed." So, it keeps a lot of people out of trouble. All right? >> Yeah, I was just telling him, I said, "Need to keep up on that." Uh Go ahead and sign here, not admitting guilt, just saying you will appear in court. Here's your driver's license and a copy of the citation. It'll have all the court information and stuff on there. >> you for the break and again >> Yeah, you guys have any questions? Uh no, this I don't do anything. I'm >> You can throw it in the trash if you want. Yeah. You got to He's got to do something, though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I you know, I I honestly thought that it was gag grouper, so Yeah, now. All right. Y'all have a great day, okay? Thank you. What do you do with fish? Well, the one donation place for use, I can't get them to answer the phone. So, they're going back in the water for the sharks. Something will eat them. Uh the pelicans eat it. There you go. I do have my license. Yeah. And my renewal for my license is in May. In the end, the angler was charged with being in possession of an out-of-season grouper. He later played guilty to the charge and his adjudication was withheld. He was ordered to pay $323 in costs and fines. If you like this video and want to see more like it, subscribe to Arrest Cam. As always, thanks for watching. >> Mhm.