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Gone
Fishin'
Fishermen run afoul of property owner
July 7, 2005
By
Nelson Sigelman
The bad boy lineup: Drew Contessa, Dave Skok and Rob Morrison.
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As with many fishing stories, this one has several versions of who said what to whom. Naturally, it depends on who is doing the telling: the fishermen, the responding police officer, or the aggrieved property owner.
By way of disclosure, I know the three fishermen, and they are all good guys. Dave Skok from Winthrop is a regular visitor to the Island and an expert fly fisherman. Drew Contessa, is a seasonal Edgartown kid and a senior at Elon College in North Carolina.
Rob Morrison, with whom I spoke, is an Edgartown kid, an expert fly tier and former Derby scholarship winner and a senior at Roger Williams College.
I have also met Harvey C. Knowles before under circumstances similar to those involving these three fishermen. On a beautiful July evening in 1998, Tom Robinson and I were fishing the same stretch of beach.
Harvey called the police on us. He claimed we had trespassed by crossing a section of large boulders and sea wall that make up the corner of his property.
Last Friday evening Rob said he and Drew parked on the side of the road, and walked through the gate that allows access to the private West Chop Beach area.
The easiest way to walk to the right is to go along the top of a concrete retaining wall that parallels the pier walkway and a stockade fence and step down over rip rap where the retaining wall ends.
The West Chop Club generously allows fishermen to access the property and the nearby Singer Jetty. The only request the club makes is that fishermen not fish from the dock.
“We heard there were some stripers around and thought we would check it out,” said Rob. “I’ve done it hundreds of times before and never had a problem.”
Dave had the same idea because the fishermen, who had not come together, according to Rob, met up on the beach, a sort of gravel bowl.
According to Rob, that was when Harvey showed up with a flashlight and told the fishermen that they were trespassing on his aunt’s property. He said if they did not leave he would call the police.
The fishermen said they were within their rights to fish below the high water mark. Mr. Knowles told them he had been through this many times, and if they did not leave he would call the police.
The guys wished him a happy Independence Day and told him to call the police.
Sgt. Robert Fiske responded to a 911 call for trespassing fishermen at 10:13 pm Friday. By all accounts he was polite and understanding.
Rob said the guys felt badly for making him come all the way down the beach. Not wanting to cause a problem, they left.
“You could tell it kind of sucked for him too, so we did not want to give him too much of a hard time,’ said Rob. “He could not have been more polite, given the situation.”
I spoke with officer Fiske, who said that Mr. Knowles had arrived on the Island just before the Fourth and promptly tacked up a prominent no trespassing sign on the end of the stockade fence that separates his property from the West Chop Beach. He said it would have been hard to miss as the fishermen stepped onto the seawall and rounded the corner to access the front beach. Officer Fiske said he explained to the fishermen that even though they could fish where they were, they had in fact trespassed to reach that spot.
Enacted between 1641 and 1647 by the Great and General Court, as the state legislature was known at the time, the ordinances retained the rights for the public along the tidelands to “fishing, fowling, and navigating.” Of course, that does not give one the right to trespass to get to those tidelands.
But whether the fishermen trespassed is a question. State licensing regulations (http://www.mass.gov/dep/brp/ww/files/310cmr9.pdf) for all filled tidelands do not allow projects to block lateral access without providing some alternative means of access so as not to interfere with public rights to fish, fowl or navigate within the tidelands.
I am not a lawyer and I do not play one in this column, but I do not think the issue is as clear-cut as Mr. Knowles makes it out to be.
I spoke with Mr. Knowles and reminded him that it was not the first time we had talked about trespassing issues. Harvey is a pleasant guy. He explained that he pays enormous taxes to the town in order to enjoy his waterfront view a few weeks out of the year. “I just have a complaint with people that cross the property,” he said.
I have to agree that were I sitting on Harvey’s porch overlooking Vineyard Sound I would probably feel the same way. It’s natural.
He said that being from Ohio, he is not up on the Colonial ordinances that provide ocean access between the low and high water mark for fishing and fowling. He claimed the men went through a gate at the end of a stockade fence along the sea wall (something Rob said did not happen) and crossed his property.
Harvey said he simply wants to enjoy his privacy. When his daughter looked out the window and spotted some men cutting across his yard, he decided to investigate.
He said the fishermen were accommodating to a point. “I can’t say that anybody was surly,” he said.
Harvey asked me not to put him on the front page and to present his side. “The issue is crossing my land,” he said, “particularly when it is posted. I understand the law. My issue is that I am here very little, as you know the property taxes are beyond ridiculous, I just don’t want people on the property.”
Rob said he could have understood Harvey’s reaction if they had been noisy. “As far as fisher folks go, we are pretty model citizens,” said Rob. “We are not the guys down there with a cooler, killing a bunch of beers, yelling all night. We are just quiet and going to catch some fish, so I do not see who we are hurting. So it kind of upsets me.”
Rob is philosophical about the Vineyard’s diminishing access to places he has fished all his life.
“It’s a fact of life now,” he said.
In what he hopes is a sign of better fish to come in this weekend’s fluke tournament, Ned Casey of Edgartown holds up a nice 11-pound fluke he pulled out from among the dogfish on July 4.
Ned wrote in his e-mailed message: "As you can also see I went to Nelson’s school of posing to maximize the 3-D effect." |
Fluke fishing challenge
If Theodore Roosevelt had been a fluke fisherman, I am sure he would have advised fishermen preparing for the Veterans of Foreign Wars sixth annual fluke tournament that will be held this weekend to walk softly and carry a big net.
Last year, Mike Amaral attained his long-held dream to wear the Fluke King crown. He did it by besting what seemed like an unbeatable fish, a 12.3-pound fluke caught by Billy Dreyer of West Tisbury.
Apparently the crown was a bit tight and cut off the circulation to Mikey’s head. The reigning fluke king (at least until Sunday), Mike, apparently is having delusions of grandeur and thinks he is Henry the Eighth of Flukovia.
He talked his vassals, Cooper Gilkes of Squidinia, Ray Long of Dogfishland, and Rick Harvey of Chumlandia, into issuing a team challenge.
The Flukettes are challenging any team of up to four people to match or beat them over two days of combined fishing. Each competing team will weigh in its four heaviest fish on Saturday and again on Sunday. The team with the highest combined total weight wins bragging rights and custom made T–shirts proclaiming the wearers to be the “Monarchs of the Deep,” or something like that. The details are still being worked out.
The entry fee is an additional $40 per team, irrespective of whether the team is two or three fishermen. Mike says it is all for a good cause.
The fluke tournament will be held weather permitting Saturday and Sunday. Peter Hermann, VFW commander, said the tournament is geared to get kids fishing.
The regular entry fee is waived for kids 12 and under. Youngsters 13 to 16 years of age and folks over 65 pay $10. The rest of us pay $20 to enter.
Fishermen can sign up at Dick’s or Shark’s Landing in Oak Bluffs, Larry’s or Coop’s in Edgartown, Up-Island Gas in West Tisbury, or at the VFW.
Peter said that if there is bad weather the tournament would be postponed. He does not want anybody taking any risks.
Peter can be reached at 774-563-0293 if it appears there is a question.
The tournament will end on Sunday, following the final weigh-in, with hamburgers and hot dogs on the VFW grill.
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