February 03, 2011
3 Tons of Striped Bass Hauled In Throughout Maryland Poaching Bust

–Dave Maccar
Normal Resource Police officers uncovered a key fish poaching ring and about three tons of illegally caught striped bass along with it. The operation integrated a string of nets the officers learned working for about 900 yards and anchored off the southern tip of Kent Island, Maryland. The fish ended up in the nets when they were discovered.
The haul was so massive, a single of the largest seizures in All-natural Source Police background, that a 73-foot icebreaker had to be named in to support get them out of the water. Unfortunately, the poachers weren’t part of the haul and are nevertheless at significant.
If they are caught, the poachers could confront numerous criminal costs, this sort of as environment nets out of season and possessing illegal nets, and, based on the actual charges and whether or not the poachers have priors, they could encounter hundreds of bucks in fines and feasible jail time.
From this story on HometownAnnapolis.com:
…The very first operation began on Monday, as officers on regimen patrol dragged grappling hooks by way of the water, looking for illegal nets, Windemuth said. The drift gill internet period for rockfish had closed in mid-January, but was owing to reopen yesterday. Officers sometimes find nets set out by watermen improperly or way too early.

…Using the grappling hooks, the officers found the nets at about 2 p.m. on Monday. Gill nets hang vertically in the drinking water, so fish swimming by are trapped in the openings. In Maryland, only drift gill nets — which aren’t anchored and can drift in the water — are authorized. They must be marked with floats on the surface and the watermen need to be in the area. These nets underneath the surface area weren’t marked and there had been no watermen about, Windemuth said.
These nets under the surface area weren’t marked and there ended up no watermen about, Windemuth mentioned.
The NRP officers — Cpl. Roy Rafter, Officer Greg Harris and Officer Drew Wilson — made a decision to lie in wait, to see if they could spot the poacher or poachers in action. “It was chilly, sleeting, snowing, raining and all that, and we had these officers out in the middle of the bay,†Windemuth mentioned.
The cops stayed out all night time, but the poachers by no means showed.
So by 7 a.m. yesterday, the officers made a decision not to let the illegal nets remain in the water any longer, so as to decrease the range of fish and other critters caught in the net. “While this internet is in the h2o, it’s continuously catching fish, snaring ducks and geese and whatsoever may well swim through it,†Windemuth explained.
When the officers began to haul in the nets, they weren’t quite confident what they were dealing with.
By mid-morning, however, they had hundreds of ft of net and basically a ton of fish weighing down their patrol boat. That’s when they named in the Widener.
The Widener wound up hauling up about another two tons of fish.
The fish and 900 yards of nets had been taken to the Section of All-natural Resources facility at Matapeake on Kent Island, in which cops and biologists expended most of yesterday chopping the fish totally free and assessing the scope of the bust.
All advised, they counted 529 fish weighing five,721 lbs, Windemuth mentioned. Some fish will be set aside for scientific analysis. Undersized and oversized fish will be donated to foodstuff pantries and shelters.
Fish that are legitimate dimension will be offered at market place, with the proceeds set aside until finally the summary of the case. It’s feasible the funds could keep with the Department of Organic
Resources to be utilised in efforts to help the rockfish populace.
The nets snared almost all rockfish, also called striped bass. There have been some mud shad and at least a single duck.
Windemuth said watermen at present are getting about $ two.fifty per pound for rockfish, so the price of the poached fish could be close to $ 15,000. The nets are really worth about $ two,000, Windemuth mentioned.

And, as common, truthful business fishermen will suffer for the poachers’ actions…
…In addition, other watermen will undergo. The 3 tons of fish will count from the statewide quota of rockfish that can be caught by commercial watermen, Windemuth mentioned. This discovery of poaching functions will come not prolonged following a multistate investigation of ongoing rockfish poaching in the Chesapeake Bay wrapped up.
That multiagency investigation went on for many years in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C., and nabbed about two dozen watermen, sellers and companies that have been accused of manipulating the state’s fish-tagging method to catch a lot more fish.