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J. J J\ J J \ J
by Terry Bonifanti
Every Saturday, Sunday and holi-
day throughout the summer a patrol
boat carrying Claude Niefert Jr.,
alone, or with one of his deputies,
cruises the shores of Harveys Lake
three time, spending an average of
eight hours on the lake.
Niefert is the Pennsylvania Fish
Commission's Waterways Patrolman
for Luzerne County. He and his men
are on the lake ‘‘to enforce the fish
and boat laws and, of course, to pro-
mote safety on the waters.”
Last Sunday, on what Niefert said
was ‘‘the lightest” Labor Day week-
end boat wise he has seen in his 10
years on Harveys Lake. I accom-
panied he aad one of his assistant’s
Charles Urban, a special waterways
patregan, on one of the three cruises
they "de around the lake. The three-
hour cruise brought us completely
around the lake and into the boats and
onto the docks of some pleasant and
some not so pleasant lawbreakers.
Immediately after starting out,
Niefert spotted a violation, a boat
moving in the wrong direction around
the lake. Since we were cruising to-
ward the boat, the officers waited til
the boat was within calling distance
and waved ‘it over. Prior to our
approaching the boat, Urban warned
me to be ready for anything. ‘We got
profane language. everything yelled
at us as we go around the lake, some-
times from cars going by on the road,
sometimes from the boats.”
Warden Urban also said. *‘If they'd
only understand we're not out*here to
obey the laws for their own sake.’
On the first boat stopped. the people
were very friendly, the officers court-
eous. However, the boat's operator, a
man who claimed to have been boat-
ing for over 10 years, was completely
igno@it of the law he had violated.
The law, which states that a boat
cruising within 100 feet of the shore
line 4 do so in a counterclockwise
directyon, is five years old.
The violator was given a copy of the
1975 Summary of Pleasure Boating
Requirements, a handbook given to
each boater every year as he registers
his boat.
If these people would only take the
time to look through this booklet,"
Niefert said, ‘but they don’t. A
majority. of these people don't take
any regard for operation rules and
procedure.’
He added, ‘Automobile rule and
regulation books are usually seen by a
driver only once. prior to his initial
examination. These boating require-
ment booklets and the fish rules and
regulation booklets are handed out
every year with the boat registrations
and fishing licenses. Yet far fewer
peogge are aware of the rules of the
Pw than the rules of the
road.”
As we pulled away from the boat, it
turned in the right direction and con-
tinued on.
Urban’s belief that not all boaters
are courteous was soon proved true.
Immediately in front of the patrol
heat, a highpowered motorboat took
off from a dock at a high rate of speed
causing a large swell, or wake near
the dock. The officers waved to the
operator and as the hoat reduced
speed the young man greeted the
wardens with “What's your pro-
blem?’’, with neither respect nor
courtesy.
Vi @n the officers explained the
violation, they denied it. After again
explaining the observed actions, the
officers let him go with a warning.
The young man took off in a burst of
speed only to have the wardens yell to
him again. He then slowed his engine
until far enough away from the patrol
boat to be out of hearing distance.
For the remaining time the patrol
boat was on the lake, the boat stopped
for its fast takeoff could be seen veer-
ing away everytime it caught sight of
the patrol boat. This procedure, not
uncommon with many boaters, ac-
cording to Niefert. He said, ‘‘on the
average Sunday, when a lot of boats
are on the lake, if the patrol boat is
down this end, most of them are up
that end, and vice versa.”
Following the incident with the hos-
tile young man who took off too fast, a
boat came at the patrol boat from
amidst a large number of sailboats
near the Yacht Club. The boat was
7
traveling near the shore, at a high
rate of speed clockwise and heading
straight for the patrol boat. Instead of
cutting out into the deeper water, the
boat came along the right side of the
patrol boat, near the shore and was
stopped by the wardens. The driver
smirked as the boats approached each
other.
As Urban explained what he had
done, and as the operator confessed to
complete ignorance of boating pro-
cedure, spaced between several wise-
cracks, Niefert identified the operator
as a ‘‘repeater.” He said both this
operator and the other hostile
operator previously had been
arrested and charged with boating
law violations. This operator was pre-
viously assessed a $50 fine. The other
was found guilty by a magistrate and
is appealing the decision. ‘‘I don’t like
“to keep running into the same ones,
but it seems year after year, there
they are.” he said.
After explaining the violation,
Urban asked him to produce his boat
registration, which he could not. Ur-
ban then inspected the boat for safety
requirements and said he would have
to see the registration.” Niefert ex-
plained the patrol boat would be
if the operator would go and get the
registration and bring it out.
The operator informed the officers
he didn’t want to bring it out, he was
“gonna do some drinking, why don’t
you come over my place and get it.”
Urban then gave the man a card
with his address and ‘asked him to
mail the registration, and the man
said, “I don't see why you just don't
come and get it.’ ,
Niefert explained to the man the
officers did not have time to follow
everyone and told him to either bring
it out or mail it. ‘We don't do this for
harassment,” Urban said agin, ‘‘that
boat could “be stolen.’ We
could've given that man a citation.”
After the other boat took off, Niefert
said, ‘We'll never see that registra-
tion.”’ If the young man fails to pro-
duce the registration, he will face a
$25 fine. He was also issued a written
warning for his boat's safety viola-
tions.
Boating law violations can carry
fines up to $100, according to Niefert.
The Fish Commission officers can
either warn violators or have them
brought before a magistrate. They
usually recommend the penalty they
feel fit to the magistrate. The same
applies to fish rule and regulation
violation. However, violation of fish
rules and regulations carry fines up to
$1,000.
On the one trip around the lake, the
officers encountered three fishermen
in violation of the law and two possible
violations. ‘The most frequent fish
law violations are ‘‘litter and no
license,” according to Urban.
Litter abounds at Harveys Lake. ‘It
comes out of boats, from fishermen,
and out of cars.” The proximity of the
road to the lake makes car litterers
the problem of the fish commission
too. Cruising the lake, beer cans,
paper bags, rotting food line the shore
lines.
Fishing license violations also are
frequent at Harveys Lake. The of-
iicers questioned two young men who
claimed to be under the required age
and were unable to produce identi-
fication in the Sunset boat mooring
section of the lake. The wardens will
now contact the boys’ schools to
ascertain their ages.
Urban said it's very easy to lie
about your age. He said he once ques-
tioned a young man fishing without a
license who claimed to be too young.
“When I asked him to produce identi-
fication, he came up with a Pennsyl-
vania drivers license,” he said.
While cruising toward the pier at
Hanson's amusement park, the of-
ficers noticed two fishermen on the
pier, one of which disappeared as the
boat approached. Both fishermen
were in violation of the fishing license
law. The one who stayed, had a
license but was not wearing his
button. He was verbally warned.
The one who left, was recovered on
foot by Urban. He was a non-resident
with a resident's license. The wardens
gave him time and told him where he
could purchase the correct license.
Urban was left on the dock until his
return. Niefert continued to cruise the
gs Le
ws »
lake.
Another frequent fishing violation,
Niefert said, is. untended lines.
Fishermen have two or three lines in
the water and are as far as 50 to 100
feet away from them. Others put lines
in the water and go into the house and
check them only once in a while.
‘While cruising the lake, we are
constantly watching for lines in the
water, or fish on a stringer, which we
check for size.” Niefert said.
One such untended line turned up
Sunday. It belonged to a young man
who was nearly 50 feet away from it
on the other side of a boat house. The
violation was explained to him and he
went over to his line.
‘‘Since our main purpose is the pre-
vention of violations, much of what we
do is to act as a deterrent,”’ Niefert
said. ‘We cruise the lake from 10 a.m.
to midnight on Saturdays, Sundays
and holidays, we pass out literature,
we put up warning buoys and main-
tain them and we stop violations and
attempt to educate them.”
The fish. commission operates a
mobile cruiser to distribute literature
and show movies, The unit was at
Throughout
the winter and summer, the commiss-
ion offers safe boating courses, but
they are sparsely attended, according
to Niefert.
The uniformed officers of the Fish
Commission are men who believe in
what they are doing. Except for Nie-
fert, the other wardens in Luzerne
Counties are volunteers, from all
‘walks of life who receive no compen-
work", according to Niefert.
i ¥They are there like Urban, who
‘‘was a great fisherman and sports-
man and saw littering, unsafe prac-
tices and unsportsmanship’’ and tried
to stop it and had to become a warden
before anyone would listen.
Urban said, *‘I do it mostly for con-
servation sake. I think of the future.”
There are some benefits. The
wardens get to talk to people. They
get to help people. Sometimes they
even get to ‘‘blow the whistle” and
bring a smile to the face of some
youngsters.
Some people believe them incom-
petent harassers and greet them with
hostility, ignorance and disrespect.
Some believe they have all the an-
swers even to questions like, ‘‘Where
are the fish biting in this lake?’ or
“Why aren't the fish biting?"
Both of those questions were an-
swered by the wardens Sunday. To the
first the reply was, ‘‘They're biting
everywhere son, you just have to
make the lake cooperate.” The
second, ‘We can’t make them bite for
you son, you have to have patience.”
If the wardens stopped just the
number of boats I saw in violation on
my Sunday cruise, it would probably
take them 10 hours to circle the lake.
‘‘We have to look for the one ‘‘that’s
potentially dangerous,’ they told me.
Several possible license violations,
registration violations, improper
placement of registration number in-
stances, had to be ignored.
There were 29 boat-related fatal-
ities in the state of Pennsylvania this
summer. Some of the boats on Har-
veys Lake are capable of achieving a
speed of 55 to 60 miles per hour, and
the majority of boat owners don’t
even appear to know the laws govern-
ing the waterways.
Niefert foresees the day when re-
strictions will become stiffer if pre-
sent laws and commonsense are not
used. ‘‘I can see the day when we're
going to have some limitation or at
least regulation on speed here at
Harveys Lake.”
The waterways patrolman said
‘Speed and large boats are shrinking
this and other lakes.” Something has
to be done.
Until something is done, or at least
for this year until right before the ice
forms, Niefert with or without a
deputy will continue trying to educ-
ate, trying to promote safety, enforc-
ing laws and acting as a deterrent to
violations on Harveys Lake.
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LICENSE
Claude Niefert,
man ignorant of fishing license rules
Lake.
Brought to
Photo by Terry Bonifanti
1 Hornet, nc
Bridge and Beade
Sunday at Harveys
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