Fish Rustlers Ride Again!

Last Wednesday a posse of Maryland Natural Resources police found another illegal gill net off Kent Island. It was filled with 400 pounds of rockfish. Maryland authorities say they’ve rounded up 8,425 yards of illegal net and 12 tons of rustled rockfish this month. And February is a short month.

Police are hot on the trail of the varmints, but so far have failed to corral the criminals, so they’re bringing in the bounty hunters. The reward for information leading to a rockfish rustling arrest has been raised to $30,500.

 

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Rustlers Net 10 Tons of Chesapeake Rockfish

Maryland authorities discovered 10 tons of rockfish caught in illegal sunken nets in Chesapeake Bay. The legal commercial catch limit for rockfish is 300 pounds a day. Posses are searching for the rockfish rustlers, and the Maryland State Government is offering a $7,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the  piscatorial poachers. The search for more illegal gill nets also continues.

Convicted rockfish rustlers can get up to five years in the calaboose and fines of up to $250,000 or twice the value of the catch. Corporate co-conspiritors may be fined up to $500,000 or twice the value of the catch.

The Rockfish (Striped Bass, Morone saxatilis), the State Fish of Maryland, recently recovered from overfishing in the Chesapeake, and its harvest is regulated. The whopping illegal haul will tighten this season’s quota for law-abiding fishermen.

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Fish Rustlers Go to the Hoosegow

A Washington, DC fish wholesaler has been found guilty of buying rockfish from a gang of rustlers. A co-owner and a fish buyer will go to the pokey, and the company has been fined $875,000. The DC bass bandits were collared last December. The rockfish (Morone saxatilis or Roccus saxatilis), also known as the striped bass, is the state fish of Maryland. It was overfished for decades, and harvesting is tightly controlled.

A posse has been roundin’ up rockfish rustlers for some time. Convictions were based on investigations by a special task force of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Maryland Natural Resources Police, and the Virginia Marine Police between 2003 through 2007.