There are always gripes and groans on perceived over fishing by commercial boys. Well how's this for a couple of amateur guys, each caught with ten times their limit. This crime, with the standard excuse of customary rights, are all too commonplace, but look at the penalty: they each take ten times the limit which carries a maximum fine of $250,000.00, the sentence: 250 hours community service.

Tends to make the whole business of responsibility for the fishery a complete joke.

Taken from 'Hawke's Bay Today' ... Thursday 18/02/2016.

A Napier man has pleaded guilty to taking more than 20 times the legal limit of paua, with all but one of them being undersized.

Karaitiana James Lee Nissen, 31, appeared before Judge Geoff Rea at Napier District court yesterday and admitted taking 266 paua from Waipatiki Beach in March last year.

He was also charged for 265 of those paua being undersized.

Judge Rea said this was a "relatively serious amount of paua and must be getting close to commercial quantities".

He sentenced Nissen to 250 hours of community work for each of the charges, to run concurrently. The maximum penalty for this type of offending is a $250,000 fine.