THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 9, 1995 TAG: 9512090315
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OCRACOKE ISLAND LENGTH: Long : 115 lines
James Barrie Gaskill thought the paint was yellow when he sprayed it on 80 styrofoam floats that mark his commercial fishing nets.
Manufacturers of Glowz Fluorescent Spray Paint must have thought color 606 was yellow, too, for they printed the name ``Saturn Yellow'' right on the can.
But a state water patrolman saw things differently.
Saturn Yellow doesn't really look yellow on the Pamlico Sound, said the officer who was patrolling that area.
It's greenish, he told Gaskill, flipping open a thick ticket book.
If a District Court judge agrees, Gaskill will be forking over the green on Tuesday.
The Ocracoke waterman faces a $25 fine and $60 in court fees for setting ``gill nets without two yellow buoys.''
He also could lose his commercial fishing license.
And regardless of whether he convinces the court that Saturn Yellow really is yellow, just challenging the ticket will cost him five days of work.
The whole incident has Gaskill seeing red - and singing the blues.
``Yellow's the only color paint I've ever used since they started making you paint your floats,'' said Gaskill, 52, who has fished commercially most of his life. ``Everyone on this island used that color - until I told them about my ticket. Now we're using a shade called Sunburst Yellow instead. And it's kind of orange-ish.
``If I had undersized oysters or too many puppy drum, I'd take that ticket. And I'd deserve it. But not for something like this. This is ridiculous,'' Gaskill said Friday from the back room of Styron's General Store.
``You try to be legal. Then they nitpick you to death over the definition of yellow,'' said the waterman. ``I think a paint company would know what yellow is more than some fish officer.''
Ocracoke fisherman Andy O'Neal agreed. O'Neal said he has been painting his gill net floats Saturn Yellow for at least a decade. About five years ago, a different law officer cited him for having green buoys, too. But when O'Neal produced the can with the Saturn Yellow label on it, the officer tore up the ticket.
``It's a good color yellow. And I still use it,'' said O'Neal. ``As long as it says yellow on the can, I'm not gonna change.''
Gaskill was knee-deep in the Pamlico Sound, setting a 50-yard gill net about a mile southwest of Portsmouth Island, when a state patrol boat approached his 16-foot vessel at 10:35 a.m. on Oct. 25. First, the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries law enforcement officer inspected the catch in Gaskill's fish boxes, measuring puppy drum and flounder. He found no infractions of size or catch limits.
But then he spotted the fluorescent floats.
Law .0103 of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries states that ``two separate yellow buoys . . . no less than 5 inches in diameter'' must mark each gill net.
``That paint was not yellow. It was green,'' state fisheries patrolman Raymond Nelson said in a telephone interview Friday. ``It sure didn't look yellow to me.''
Gaskill told Nelson that he could provide the can of paint with the Saturn Yellow label on it, to prove that he had acted in good faith when he sprayed his styrofoam floats.
Nelson told Gaskill to take it to court, instead.
``I could've just paid the fine and mailed it in. But I want a judge to see this. And if I lose Tuesday, I'll hire a lawyer and ask for a jury trial,'' said Gaskill. ``There's nothing wrong with having a law like that, saying a certain color has to be used. But to say yellow isn't yellow - the least he could've done is write me a warning first and let me repaint the things.
``They were just looking for something that day,'' the waterman said. ``Instead of worrying about the resource and busting people for legitimate violations that would help save the fish, they're pulling people's licenses for little things like this.
``You lose your driver's license for drunk driving. But they don't take it for a parking ticket. That's about what this amounts to.''
Last December, a law officer inspected Gaskill's pound nets off the southern Outer Banks less than two weeks after Hurricane Gordon stirred up the ocean floor offshore. Waves had broken one of the longer net stakes - the one that held a wooden sign engraved with Gaskill's name. The law enforcement officer gave Gaskill a ticket for failing to properly mark his net.
State law says that if a waterman commits two infractions in a year, the Division of Marine Fisheries can revoke his commercial fishing license.
``I already lost two days fishing when I had to pull all those nets in and repaint the floats in October,'' Gaskill said. ``I'll lose three more days getting to court next week. And if the judge doesn't think this is yellow, I could lose my livelihood, too.''
Since Ocracoke Island is only accessible by boat, Gaskill has to take a $10, two-and-a-half-hour one-way ferry trip from his village to Cedar Island on Monday, then drive to Beaufort. He'll have to spend Monday night at a hotel in order to be at his 9 a.m. trial in Carteret County District Court. And he won't get home until after dark Tuesday. That's too late to set his nets. So he'll miss fishing on Wednesday as well.
``I think this whole thing is a waste of the court's time - and mine,'' said Gaskill, his ice-blue eyes flashing above a long, gray moustache. ``I chose that yellow because it was fluorescent, and the easiest color to see on the sound. On a clear day, you can spot floats sprayed Saturn Yellow a mile away on the water. That's the idea, isn't it? To mark the nets for better visibility?
``But it's like an overzealous cop. They'll just write you up for anything,'' said the waterman. ``Things like this aren't helping the commercial fishermen's perception of state fisheries officials at all.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by DREW WILSON, The Virginian-Pilot
YELLOW IS AS YELLOW DOES?
James Barrie Gaskill, 52, of Ocracoke, says he was cited by a Marine
Fisheries law enforcement officer for not having his gill net floats
painted the proper shade of yellow - a shade he and other fishermen
have been using for years.
KEYWORDS: COMMERCIAL FISHING by CNB