The template was ready for the supervisor in this illegal catch examination

I couldn't believe what I saw through the small window of the ice hut. At first it was a bit puzzling, but after I set the focus on my binoculars, it was again and then again.

After a few minutes I was sure what took place in the hut only 100 meters away. I couldn't believe my luck either and was grateful that I was able to watch everything from the warmth and comfort of the truck of my supervisor.

I had more than deserved this moment of lightness after I deserved dozens of freezer -cold monitoring times from the forested coasts of Craigs Pond in Orland from the forest coast lines. The pond has fishing regulations that make it illegal to change and only enables two ice fishing lines instead of the five on most water bodies.

A few weeks earlier, the information had filtered in my ear through the local ice fishing community in relation to the alleged practice of this fisherman to fish too many lines and usually stay from this pond.

I had hoped to catch him with both violations, but was ready to go into one of the chances. When I catch it and kept a toogue, I would have been the ultimate reward, but with a slight fading I knew that the fisherman would soon leave.

In addition, I had everything I needed after I raised a rhythmic routine of the arm, bent forward and stated that, illegally, matched a third line in the hut.

This would not be the first time that the fisherman and I met. Two other players and I were on Toddy Pond during a derby last winter. After we discovered a hut with several traps that were scattered in front and had no one nearby, we decided to research.

It was soon clear that the lines were unattended. Finally a man returned and said that he and his friend, who belonged to the hut, had set the traps, but his friend was almost an hour earlier to take a trip to his residence.

The man's friend was the fisherman that I was now in sight.

After a short call, the fisherman returned and we made him a summons for his unattended lines. After that, I asked myself with some trustworthy sources about the first man and he quickly earned a place on my must-watch list.

I was unable to find this fisherman in the area in the first part of the ice fishing season, and was fascinated when his hut appeared on Craig's pond, and I eagerly went to work. Soon I received information that he bragged about keeping several togue from the other end of the pond in an area known as Togue hole, and even entered one of the fish in a local fishing derby.

I tried to make a legal case from a picture of the fish that I had received that had been taken to his hut, but I just couldn't prove that he had come out of this pond.

Even more determined to catch him after the derby fishing entry, I worked on every chance I got. I hiked, crawled and snow around the pond to find the best places I could watch from, and spent hours drinking hot coffee out of my thermal chains to keep myself warm and focused.

After a few weeks I still had nothing to show for my efforts and was frustrated. I had given up hope as much as I decided to quickly check the landing after a meeting in the afternoon, and was shocked when the fisherman's hut had moved into the small bay, just a short distance from bank.

When I hadn't been seen, I was really out of my way where I started looking for activities around the hut. After all, I had him dead.

With all the trust in the world, I grabbed my book book and started over the bay towards the hut. The fisherman opened the door when I was only a few meters away and got out.

Rounded, he frozen like a deer in the spotlight.

I grinned arrogant and asked him where his jig rod was. The fisherman shook my head and assured me that he hadn't changed.

After I let him know that I had observed him for some time, I asked that he showed me the Jig rod and the hole under his hut. Again he said he hadn't changed and that there was no hole under the hut.

I looked under the hut and realized that he was right. There was no hole.

At that time I saw the cards on the table and realized that the movements that I had seen were not that of the man who played solitaire.

I was right to feel like a full idiot.

And when I thought it couldn't get worse when we stood there and talked, a flag appeared on one of the nearby traps.

After a short struggle between man and fish, the fisherman pulled a 5-pound toogue out of the hole, cut the line, pushed the fish into the water and fired his own arrogant grin back, while he was happy: “I can't keep it here ! ”