Ironbelly said:
Cooncrazy is right.The reg.is not clear. An established watercourse does not necessarily have water in it at any given time.For example, road clverts, seasonal springs, and ditches are "watercourses" protected by PA law.It should not be left to a W.C.O. to make this determination as to whether a violation exists.The law should be clear.After all, the law may restrict the use of the bodygrip but it also guarantees my right to use that steel if I so choose.I, for one, get tired of being told what the law says by people who put their own twist to it.If the PA Legislature wanted bodygrips set only in water, the law would state "It is unlawful to set boddygripping traps out of water." Some of us still know when we're getting smoke blown up our bums.I'll let the J.P. tell me I'm wrong.
That law used to be written so it was clear. It said that, “all body gripping traps had to be underwater sets.”
The problem was that trappers would go out and set traps during a period of high water, but then as the level dropped to a more normal level his trap was out of the water. Trappers were then getting fined for having their traps set in a manner that they were not really under water, as the law required.
The current wording that states, “set in a waterway” was simply enacted to correct that problem of water level fluctuations on traps that had been set under or in the water. If trappers want to see it become more restrictive then it presently is all they have to do is set their body gripping traps on the land, ice or snow where none target species get caught.
The intent of the law, when it changed from under water sets, was simply to allow for a trap that was still in the water, though not under water, to be a legal set. If trappers can’t or will not work within that intent, and start catching none target species, then they are only shooting themselves and all other trappers in the foot because the law will change if that happens. It could even change to prevent all body gripping traps and that would not be good for a lot of reasons.
Dick Bodenhorn