Teens may catch criminal record for fishing in closed beach

Mike Ascher hired a charter boat as a birthday treat for his son John and three friends. The young men had opted not to spend spring break in Mexico, so Ascher wanted them to have a great time on the quieter Outer Banks.

The good time turned into trouble last Thursday morning for John Ascher, 18, and a 17-year-old friend. They returned to their St. Paul, Minn.- area home facing either a hefty fine and a federal criminal record, or an expensive fight in federal court.

Mike Ascher said he is encouraging his son to fight the violation that a National Park Service ranger issued to him for entering a closed section of beach.

The concern is not so much paying the $150 ticket, he said. It's how the offense could look on, say, a future graduate-school application.

"Those kids did nothing wrong intentionally," Ascher said. "God bless them, they're city kids. They don't do any fishing or boating. They didn't knowingly go in there."

Ascher said his family has visited its Colington vacation home regularly from Minnesota for the past 12 years.

The teens were cited for entering a pre-nesting area on a beach off the pond on the northeast side of Oregon Inlet.

It is one of the closures in Cape Hatteras National Seashore established this month to protect anticipated shorebird nesting grounds.

Marked by signs, the closure was required as part of a court-sanctioned agreement regulating off-road vehicle use that was signed in April.

Reese Stecher said the teens were fishing for puppy drum off his 22-foot vessel Beach Bum when he saw the fish congregated in the warmer shallows at the northeast corner of the pond, a pool of water behind the Bodie Island spit.

"We were too far to get a cast to them," Stecher said.

He jokingly commented that it was too bad it was so cold, because they could wade in and chase them out.

"These kids laughed," he recalled. "They said, 'We were in the ocean yesterday. We're from Minnesota!' They went in there in their boxer shorts."

After wading through the 49-degree water, the two young men went up onto the sand bank to fish.

While there, Stecher said, they briefly strayed into the closed area behind the signs, leaving a few footprints on the wrong side.

At the appearance of the ranger, Stecher said, he waded to shore.

When he realized that John Ascher and his friend were being ticketed, the charter captain asked the ranger to write him the ticket, instead.

"Technically, it's my fault, because I didn't warn them," Stecher said.

The signs had seemed far enough away from the water, he said, and it did not appear that they would get near the enclosures.

Stecher said he later declined to accept the $350 payment for the half-day trip.

Stecher said they were treated "like common criminals" and that the ranger should have used more discretion.

"These were the most well-behaved kids," he said. "They were the last kids on the planet who should have been issued tickets."

Acting Chief Ranger Paul Stevens said that if rangers judged violations on the basis of claims of unintentional actions, "probably 40 percent" of them would not be issued.

Stevens said rangers can respond in various ways after observing a violation, including issuing a warning, except for action mandated in the court agreement.

For whatever reason, Stevens said, the ranger felt the violation by the Minnesota party warranted citations.

"Once a violation is issued," he said, "it's out of our hands."

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com