If you like fish and wildlife content, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos. On September 7th, 2024, a deputy with Monroe County Sheriff's Office was on patrol when he observed 30-year-old Ernesto spear fishing. All right. Can you bring it here to me? Yes, sir. How'd you catch it? Did I catch him? Yeah. I was out there. I did my little spear. Got it. hands for you. Okay. So intense you are, bro. It's a 1 to 8 in uh uh what's it called? 8 in. Um I forget what it's called. Uh do you have an ID by any chance? Yeah, bro. All right, man. Okay. Hey, is that is Did I do something wrong? Yeah, we're going to talk about it now. Okay. Yeah, just get your ID. Yeah. Uh got to get her in the car. All right, man. All right. Let me get Say what? Before Before you grab your ID. Yeah. I'll just write down your name and everything here. Okay. Yeah, man. Um can I know what I what? Yeah, we'll talk about it now. I just go for it. Uh, it's Ernesto. Is there anybody else in the water with you? No. What's your birthday and your ID's out of Florida? Uh, no. It's Charlotte. North Carolina. North Carolina. Yeah. I'm visiting my family. All right. You ever you lived in Florida before? Yeah, man. Got it. Okay. Okay. If I go back to Yeah, you can hang out on the rocks. You sure you got no lobster, man? Is there anything in the in the car? cooperative. All right. So, if I if I have one of my partners come right now by land to check if you had anything in the car, we're not going to find anything. All right. All right. All right. All right, man. I'm not trying to waste your time really fast. I got you. That's uh you said you have your dive your your your license fishing lobster and all that stuff. You have to it's uh digital. Okay. It's digital. Yeah. Do you have it? Yeah, it's on my phone. I can show you. Gotcha. If you want to grab grab it, grab your phone and grab whatever it is that you have. You know, you can grab your ID as well and just come back here and you'll hop on my boat for a minute. Okay. Okay. Am I uh in trouble? Are you taking me? Did I say I'm Did I This is my first time. You're good. Just grab my little net over there with some paper. Yeah. Hey, you want to pass me your phone first? That we don't drop it. I take your ID as well. Thank you. Sorry about that. Yeah. I don't have anything crazy. I know that's weird. Here, I'll help you up. You can climb up through here that way. I put that down. That way you can uh There you go, man. All right. What's up? Okay. 4118. I got the North Carolina deal. Here we go. Take a look at this. All right. Thank you. Something dry. All right. I got I got a little rag right here for you. Okay. All right. Suspense is killing. You speak Spanish? Yeah. Okay. Do you understand? Like okay. Okay. That way we don't waste time. I'm going to read you something and then I'm going to ask you questions. Okay. Okay. Just two questions. Okay. Okay. So, you were spear fishing? Yes. Okay. Um, you have a license to your you have the fishing license and lobster license. That's a good thing. Okay. Um, but you know, do you are you aware that the fish that you do you even know? Do you know? Yes. Uh, French angel and two runs that don't have size limit. Got it. The the grunts are fine. It's doesn't matter. No size limit, bag limit. You can catch as many I think it's like about like a 100 pounds per day or something like that. Okay. Um, I don't know off the but it's it's around that that digit there. Those numbers. Um, so are you familiar with I mean you are familiar with it. You know it was a French angel fish. I know it was a French angel. I saw that there was a 1 to 8 in uh I forget what it's called limit. It's like a stripe limit. Uh I have it on the little book. Got it. And that's okay why I went for it. And I looked it up. I even I looked it up a bunch of times before. I made sure it was a French angel and then I saw that it has man I wish the book has a thing. It's called like a a spot limit or something and it says 1 to 8 in and it's from like the back of the fin to like the front of the fin. Got it. Okay. Are you aware that you you can't harvest you can harvest it is it's a it's a it is an ornamental species. Okay. It is not a species that you spear. Okay. Okay. Is that how you you speared it? I did. Okay. So, did you know you weren't spear them? I have no idea. It's not that you can't harvest them. You need a special permit for it. Okay. Do you know it's not a hard per you go through like a little like it's like a little school. Honestly, it's important that you know that because you know now, you know, we're we're in a little bit of trouble. Okay. Um so, you can't spear them. These animals uh these fish, you have to keep them alive in a live well. That's why they're called ornamental species. So you can probably think guess why they're called ornamental species cuz you can put them in aquariums and they're not supposed to also surpass a certain size limit also. Okay. So we're going to measure it and uh we'll go from there. Okay. So like I said, you know, that's why it's, you know, it's important and it's imperative that you know, you know your fishing regulations that way things like this don't happen. That special license thing is that's the part that wasn't showing up anywhere cuz I looked it up. Aside from having a special license, you also have to live, you have to land the fish online. Okay. And you also have to keep it in a an an erration system where it keeps it alive. You know, failure to do that, you know, stuff like this ever again, man. Is there a place where Yeah. If I bought a book and it said angel fish and it just tells you, yeah, you can harvest it. Doesn't say this or that. So like it's a little hard to access the commercial sometimes and I just want the that's all man totally like after I got that one I was like I don't want to try this fish anymore I I love the environment like I gota yeah you know I do too I mean we all who who doesn't you know we live we're in paradise we get to do this all the time dude I work in it it's freaking awesome but you know for me it's also important that my job is to enforce the regulations also to educate But I also have to enforce the laws and I have to do my job. Okay. So, what's going to happen next is, you know, I'm going to give you back your ID and your phone. Um, well, I'll give you back your ID now. Um, I'm going to send you with a little bit of paperwork. Okay? And then, uh, there is this is it is a it is a misdemeanor. Okay. So, there is going to be a mandatory court date. Okay. And I'm going explain to you everything once I give you all the paperwork. Okay. Tracking so far? Yeah, sure. All right, man. So, is this your first time? Has this ever happened before? This is like my This is really honestly this is my first time out here in the water. Like I just got my gun. I just got all my licenses. I just got my book. I got everything. It's a first time offense, man. And I'll be honest with you, it's it's you're not going to be a hard hit or anything like that. Like, you know, they're you go before the judge and they'll, you know, they'll they'll explain to you and they'll give you they'll read you through everything. And you know, sometimes, you know, they'll give you like 6 months probation, maybe a year that you can't fish or or do any sort of fishing, at least here in the Florida Keys in this county. Um, you know, sometimes, you know, if it's like I've heard sometimes if it's like FWC, like state, like they're state police, they can ban you for a whole freaking year to 6 months or maybe even more, three years. There's been serious offenses where people have been banned for three years or four or five. Like I'm talking about like a huge number and they can't touch a fishing pole for the rest of you can dive and snorkel all you want but you can't you can't do what you're doing now for for a little while. Okay. I love this. Appreciate that. So what we're going to do is uh you can take your phone. Uh I'm going to type some things up and uh I'll send you on your way. Okay. And I'll explain everything to you and then you can board my boat boat again. That way I can uh explain to you all the uh provisions. All right. Do you have any other questions for me at the moment? No. So, it's a court date. Yeah, we're going to we'll go over that now. So, I'm just going to bring you to shore. Technically, like a ticket. Yeah. Citation. It's a notice. It's a notice to appear. Okay. It's an NTA. Let me know if I have to pay and or whatever. Have you ever gotten an NTA before? No. No. Okay. All right, man. Let me bring you right here to shore. That way you don't have to swim so much. [Music] All right. So, so um hold on real quick. Like I looked up and tried to get as educated as I could before I got in the water obviously. Um and I guess not enough because that I missed that vital, you know, book. Was it a book that you got like online or No, no. I bought it here in the Florida Keys and it's a 2024 regulations and I don't know why it does like it says the section where angel fish, parrot fish, all that stuff. That's the section it was in. And um it doesn't say the other stuff, which again is why I went for it. Otherwise, I wouldn't even have this phone. I got you, man. I would have never seen that. All right. So, you can you can exit and uh I would just go either side, whichever. You keep an ID. I'm going to hold on to your D for now and then I'll return I'll give it back to you. Okay. Uh I would go off the side, not from the front, cuz it's higher and there's a lot of rocks here. Hey, Ernesto, come. Yeah. Through here. I know it's a little deeper, but I just I don't want you jump falling on the rocks or anything like that and hurting yourself. I'm good right here. All right. All right. We'll do this quick. Okay. So this is this is your copy. Okay. Um it can get wet a little bit. Just it's more of just don't lose it or anything like that. Okay. Um [Applause] okay. This is your bucket too. That way we don't forget that as well. Um All right. So this is going to be this is my copy. I don't want you to freak out when you saw two prints. Okay. Um, so my copy is the same as yours, okay? There's nothing different about it. Um, so it's just explaining to you, okay, it's uh live landing of marine life required. Uh, possession of refish as well, okay, without a permit. And then the other one is possession of a uh it's a size violation as well. Okay, cuz it was oversized. Okay, so they do fish. They have to have a certain level is the right size. Yeah. watch. They do have to have a certain size limit. Okay. It's an inch. I'm not going to tell the size limit on that if I may ask before I before you let me go. Right. I just So, unless you're going to keep it for for a for an aquarium, you know what I mean? So, for the most part, I mean, you can just judge by the eye cuz people will catch them, you know? They're looking for the little ones. Like, unless you're looking for a big tank, you know what I mean? You never have to look at that fish again. So, and that's all right, too. So the uh so like I said, so in the back right here, the same copy, okay? It's going to be your court date, which is going to be on the 19th of September, 2024 at 9:00 a.m. before Judge Morgan. Failure to appear to your court date will result in a warrant for your arrest. Okay? So it's imperative that you show up to your court date. Uh I don't choose the dates. I know it's like right around the corner, but I don't choose those dates. Okay? I wish I could cuz I would push it back like little a little bit more. That way you have time. get a lawyer or whatever, you know. Also, um, so everything understood. Where does one find that you need a permit for that fish? Like you go So you go on fwc.com. Uh, here if you want to write it for you fwc.com. Yeah, you go fc.com and there it's going to tell you everything you need to know about of marine species. So, if you actually do like uh like you know tanks, if you like having a fish tank in your house, you can fwc.com. Yeah. And you put marine species or you can put French angel fish and you'll see everything about them. Okay. Also, the part, you know, it's like you're, you know, puncturing an animal. You can't catch you can't kill these animals. They got to be whole. If I knew, I would not have touched it, man. I wouldn't touch it. You know, that's why it's good they pardon me because I'll never harm. I'll tell people you can't touch these fish. That's why it's good to always, you know, uh, you know, like books and stuff and things that you can get at a store. That helps a lot. Watch it. And, um, which is what that's what I'm annoyed at. Like, obviously not your fault. So, I'm just so annoyed that I saw that and it says bag limit five per person. Like, right. God, I only shot one. That exactly. So, that way it doesn't happen again. You know what I mean? Yeah. So, next thing, all I need from you is a signature of my poppy. Yeah. Your signature. Oh, there it is. Your signature is not admission of guilt. It only means that you understand everything I explained to you. Do you understand everything I've explained to you? Yes, sir. All right. So, will you sign my copy? Yeah. All right. Just give me a second. And then, um, I had read about obviously and walkers. Um, where is it that it begins officially where you can spearfish off the reef? I know it's I think it's past long key. It's uh once you get past long key that is correct. So, I just need your signature right here. Yeah, just right next to the little arrow. All right, man. Here's your ID1 and you are free to go. Thanks for the info, too. Yeah, man. Appreciate it. By the way, the fish I don't keep it. It goes back into the water, just so you know, okay? We don't keep it. We don't freeze it or anything like that. That's why we take pictures of it. Oh, there's a fish right there. That is the French angel fish that I just tossed. Ernesto was initially charged with failure to keep a tropical fish alive, possession of undersized reef fish, and a level two fishing violation. The state prosecutor pursued the failure to keep a tropical fish alive charge. He pled no contest. His adjudication was withheld, and he was ordered to pay a total of $38 in cost and fines. If you like this video and want to see more like it, subscribe to Arrest Cam.