Donno

There is some merit to what you say, but 30 years in the field have taught me that not all is as it might appear. Oftentimes, the fancy boats/gear have a higher compliance rate than the plainer boats/gear. It is easier to blend if you look like the majority.

As for the LE data, it is my opinion that it was not properly applied to the recreational/sport crabbers. The Dept has used the total numbers to calculate a "violation" rate. They lump citations and warnings without breaking out the actual number of folks who got tickets. It is possible/probable/likely that one person might get a citation (ticket) and 2 warnings. Others might get 3 citations and no warnings. We know that the universe contacted was 879, but how many actually were charged? The presumption is a warning or a citation equals one person and that most likely isn't the case. It might have been 170 people that accumulated all the charges/warnings in which case the violation rate out of 879 drops to 19% or an 81% compliance rate. If you do just the crab citations, the violation rate drops to 14% or 86% compliance.

I think you also need to look at the type of violation. Over limits and under-sized are, IMHO, more serious than soft shell. Soft shell on a legal crab is going to give a person a poor quality meal, but if one is happy with that level of quality and stops when the limit is reached - is that a problem?

Fail to record is a record keeping issue, like failing to tag a big game animal. When a person is on the water, there are items that have to be handled as pots are pulled and stacked or re-baited and re-set. If a person pulls a pot and finds one legal crab and then marks it on the CRC with ink or indelible pencil and after pulling the second pot with no legal crab(s) and then decides to not make the effort to clean cook one crab, what happens if the one crab is released? You can't erase the record and when you send in your CRC, the crab will be credited to the total take even though it was released. If the requirement was that all crab to be possessed must be recorded before reaching the beach or ramp and a check was made on the water, as long as the boat limit isn't exceeded is there a problem?

If someone decides to double dip (going out for multiple limits and take the risk not to record the catch, when the shore is reached and a contact is made - then there are options available to the LE officer ranging from failure to record to illegal possession or if mulitple trips are observed logged, then possibly more serious charges might be laid.