I fished the mouth of the Quilcene yesterday. During the early morning on a low tide, small groups of fish were entering the river. There was a group of 3 (2 young guys and an older one) on the other side of the river from me. One of the young guys apparently was in a good spot and caught 4 silvers in a short time (4 fish limit) but kept on fishing. He caught another which the other young guy(early 20s) who was snagging fish in a shallow pool, punched on his card. When the 3 left, they had 11 fish filleted. About 1/2 hour later two guys walked into the area and said that the 3 guys who left with the bunch of fish got busted when they got back to their car. One got a ticket for too many fish, the other for snagging and the older guy got one for not marking his fish before resuming fishing. I don't know if there was a citation for having the fish filleted. Apparently a game warden has been watching the mouth pretty closely with a spotting scope and has been doing a good job of handing out tickets.
The run at the mouth is pretty much over. There is an occassional group of 3 or 4 fish coming through and a few small schools still milling about in the bay, but the big waves of fish that were coming through last week are finished.

Deepwater

Good to see that the enforcement is out. These snaggers need to be stopped. Unintentionally snagging a fish and releasing it is one thing, but keeping and intentionally snagging fish is something very different!!!

If they (judicial system) would just stop screwing around and make it a minimum $500.00 fine PER FISH and go up from there, it would stop all but the hungriest and most destitute (not really many of them). No if's, and's, or fancy lawyers...... You get caught doing this dispicable act, you pay severely. Take license too. Maybe then people would take it seriously.

MC