Mr Westley, who has a license to fish lobsters both from inland traps around the Shoalhaven and also offshore, said he loses thousands of dollars to poachers every year.

“In peak season, it costs us up to a hundred grand,” he said. “Poaching is a serious problem for everyone.”

Mr Westley said poachers had plundered his deep-water traps in the past, while on-shore pots were a prime target for illegal anglers.

“At low-tide, your grandmother could walk out and steal them,” he said of the traps set close to headlands.

It’s a timely issue, after a Culburra Beach man was fined $3000 for the use of illegal lobster traps and possession of an undersized specimen.

DPI Fisheries officers observed him using two unmarked traps off the headland at Crookhaven Heads in Culburra Beach in July 2007 and he was fined in Nowra Local Court recently.

The charge brought the issue of lobster trapping to the local table, with fishing clubs and associations around the Shoalhaven saying there was ‘no excuse” for illegal fishing.

Mr Westley pays “around five dollars a kilo” for his licence to fish and distribute lobsters, and also has to comply with rigorous DPI inspections to retain his licence.

But he said the issue was about much more than the money.

“I’ve got absolutely no time for people who take undersized fish or lobsters. It stuffs up the whole breeding chain.”

Big fine for fishing in sanctuary zone

A MAN caught fishing in a sanctuary zone without a licence has been fined $1000.

In Nowra Local Court Richard Jenson, 36, of Welling Drive, Mount Annan was fined $700 for attempting to harm an animal in a marine park without consent and $300 for recreational fishing without a receipt.

Two Jervis Bay Marine Park officers were on patrol when they spotted Jenson fishing in the Huskisson Sanctuary Zone.

This was despite signage at Myola ramp, where Jenson launched his boat, showing the restrictions against fishing in the sanctuary zone and buoys clearly marking the zone.

The officers asked him to pull in his line, which he did, but when he was asked for his licence he told them that he had paid the daily fee, but didn’t have the receipt on him.

They gave him 14 days to send a copy of the receipt, but Jenson failed to comply.