I believe they might have less to say. However, the natural boobed, possibly hairy arm pitted women on MSNBC might have as much if not more to say than the faked boob fox correspondents. I will try to have more and better results for you nap loving Vedder after further investigation. I've decided that Todd should be on some news channel, wouldn't matter which one, cuz he would not even need a point of view to be the most heard correspondent.

Good tip and absolutely right!

Fishy

Heard or hated?

had 3 pots stolen in A9 this year... Not a huge deal, but the look in my little nephew's eyes is enough to make it a huge deal.

Dear D-Bag pot thief, Thanks for teaching a young person what it feels like to be robbed. awesome.

Sounds like a compliment

Mr. Richard, need I remind of a weekend on the Umpqua, while you and a bottle of loudmouth ran roughshod for hours and hours?

Speaking of roughshod...I'd like to drive my van over the top of those f'n poachers...and, like many, I suspect no one will do anything about it...but now that the perps are id'd, I wouldn't be surprised to see some vigilante justice by the locals, they don't cotton too well to people stealing their pots and crabs, especially when they are likely going to turn around and sell the crabs on the black market.

Love to find the POS who buys them from them...stolen crabs, out of season.

Fish on...

Todd

good work fellas!

Todd, the best part of that night in Oregon was when my wife told you to quit responding to me in hopes that I would stop talking. Quite funny indeed.

This last Friday morning started a bit exciting, but turned out to be a fine day.

Island County Sherrif called back today, but nothing has really happened.

I called WDFW about tribal members netting on days they weren't suppose to be netting. The very nice WDFW women told me to call the tribe and complain, "for whatever good that will do you" was her comment.

Rico

Give us the name and phone # of the person handling this and we can call in frequently and politely to ask what is taking place....you know how that squeaky wheel works.

If nothing is done, I think that with Marsha having had other complaints, and the actual eyewitness accounts would make this prime for a good editorial or "ask Jesse" type media. The fact that they had no business being on the water, are stealing crabs and pots, and that they are deemed untouchable would make for a good sound bite. On a side note, I wonder what Billy Frank thinks about this. I think I will send him an email with the link. While every one has slime bags in their family, defending them is a whole different story and leaves you just as hated for their actions.

PM sent

I recall a similar situation a couple of years ago involving one or more Tulalip tribal members where there were enough such incidents reported that law enforcement did a fly over of the suspect's property and documented enough information to convince the appropriate authorities to do a search. Again, my recollection is that they found a number of recreational pots with owners' names still affixed. I don't recall the outcome if it was ever made public.

As mentioned earlier in this thread the real question is who is buying this presumably illegally taken crab? Seems it would be much easier for LE to work from information received from the thief than from following paperwork from the retailer back to the wholesaler which is how they recently uncovered a Tulalip crabber selling to a commercial buyer and neither of them submitting the necessary paperwork to document the catch. This was in the magnitude of tens of thousands of pounds of crab that was not applied to the tribal share and ultimately was over and above the total agreed upon harvestable poundage.

Sale of illegally taken crab would seem to be a violation of the Lacey Act of 1900 (Federal) in addition to a variety of State laws. The Lacey Act most notably prohibits trade in wildlife, fish, and plants that have been illegally taken, transported or sold.

So far as the actual thefts go, taking pots and the crabs that are in them, this should not be a tribal/non-tribal issue...it's a crime. When tribal members are off the reservation and commit a crime, they are under the jurisdiction of whomever's territory they're on...in this case, it should be the Island County Sheriff.

I got the numbers, and we called it in. We can ID the boat easily.

Fish on...

Todd

The Lacey Act kicks in when a federal boundary is crossed. Usually, it is a state line or international border, but it could be argued for a federal boundary within a state (Forest Service, BLM, National Park, or a tribal reservation). Unless it has changed, there is/was a $250 value threshold that had to be exceeded.

States can have their own statutes on the dealing of illegally taken/sold wildlife.

For commercial fisheries violations, take a look at sections 77.15.110, 560, 565, 568, 570,620, 630, and 640 in the link to the WDFW enforcment statutes below:

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=77.15

Todd, no argument from me. Certainly the appropriate authority for reporting this crime is the Island County Sheriff's Department. And the difficulty they will have is jurisdiction in accessing tribal land to obtain any evidence. Hence the Lacey Act and Federal jurisdiction comment.

Frankly, I am very tired as a recreational crabber of being a member of a group which is characterised by the commercial fishers (and one Commissioner) as scofflaws; a perception reinforced by certain members of WDFW LE when quoting recreational violation rates to the press when those rates (if supportable) are really violations by targeted (that is, not random) recreational crabbers. The State Auditor's Office in its written report on its audit of the WDFW Puget Sound Dungeness crab management program made note of the purported recreational violation rate and clearly indicated that it could not be applied to the recreational fishery as a whole as LE's efforts were not random.

Recent data pulled together and released informally by WDFW LE shows numerous serious commercial violations (both tribal and non-tribal fishers as well as buyers) involving huge poundages of crab. So where is the coverage on those violations (rhetorical)?

Bushbear, given how strongly the tribes have played on their sovereignty it would seem that a good case could be made that the Lacey Act does apply if the theft and subsequent sale crossed the reservation boundary. Doesn't take too many crab to reach a value of $250.00 especially if it is the ultimate retail value (and crab being sold through Vancouver and shipped live to Asia for $42.00 a crab retail as has been reported).

And, in summary, we finished up another great summer crab season this week-end in Area 8-2. Large numbers of females and just short males in the pots and just enough legals to yield limits or near limits especially from deeper water. Looking forward to the winter season to see how the larger males may redistribute themselves.

The latest: Island County Sheriff notified the city of Langley police department and the Chief of Police called me. Here is what he said in paraphrase and quote as I did not memorize his exact words.....

He said thanks for reporting it and he'd love to nail them sum'bitches as he is sick of dealing with them stealing crab and gear. He said he is an avid crabber and enjoys fishing and it pisses him off that we pay all these license fees and have to abide by these rules and then some tribal members come over and steel right outta our pots and nobody does anything about it. He would love to catch them. he says. He says the numbers on the boat are incomplete or partial so we'd have to identify the boats, which we could easily do. He also says that we would have to identify for sure the people onboard but tough to do without pics cuz they can just say, "wasn't me." The Sheriff's dept and the Langley Chief both say it is impossible to get help from the tribal authorities with much of anything. He also said in the future to not call the poaching hotline (which is another story) but to call 911 cuz it is at minimum a misdemeanor theft, depending on value a felony theft and they have a Sheriff boat that needs some use. They all say they are glad its reported and it was the right thing to have it documented. But not much can be done on this case. The Langley cop was glad we chased em and were yelling. He says he wants to nail them bad, he is sick of them.

So here is the lesson if catching a poacher in progress, call 911 first cuz it is a crime in progress, get pics, then call wdfw. The frustrating part was calling the poaching hotline and having it refer me to another number which was the state patrol. The state patrol hotline refered me right back the poaching hotline......so the poaching line only works right away after 8am.

The Tulalips are the only tribe in Washington to have entered into an interlocal agreement with the County Sheriff (Snohomish County) allowing tribal LE to arrest non-tribal members. If Tribal LE is not willing to fully cooperate in the investigation of such crimes maybe the Island County Sheriff needs to speak with his Snohomish County counterpart about the legitimacy of the interlocal agreement.

The WN number is a start, but the letters following the number are also needed. Not sure if WA Parks is set up to do a registration check on a partial number, but it could narrow the search for vessel, especially with a description available. Tribal registrations are usually followed by tribal identification letters. On the NOP, we see PGK for Port Gamble Klallam, JST for Jamestown, and LEK for Lower Elwha Klallam. Not sure what system other tribes might be using. If similar lettering is used, it shouldn't be too hard for LE to run the WN number and add the tribal letters.......

Calling 911 is the best start here. The poaching hotline is not very efficient. Some folks have cell numbers for the local WDFW officer which can be useful if they're on duty. Pictures are also helpful - cell phone or camera to document vessel(s), people, etc. Try to get some background, too, so that the area can be identified.