Busted

I’ll just say (to appease the staff) that this is getting to be ridiculous….

OUTDOORS: Tip leads wardens to sizable white bass bust on DL

N.D. wardens cite 6 St. Paul anglers for keeping 388 white bass over daily limit

By Brad Dokken

Herald Staff Writer

Six anglers from St. Paul face misdemeanor charges for keeping 598 white bass in a single day – 388 more than their daily limit allowed – while fishing Devils Lake last week near Minnewaukan, N.D.

Charged in connection with the July 1 incident were Chane T. Moua, 19; Anthony Vang, 20; Kaven Kongchee Vang, 19; Peter Vang, 26; Xu Vang, 45; and William Yang, 21; all of St. Paul. The six are scheduled to appear Monday in Benson County District Court.

According to an investigation report filed by the North Dakota Game and Fish Department, an anonymous tipster called the state’s Report All Poachers hot line after observing the anglers catching “a lot of fish” at the boat ramp two miles south of Minnewaukan.

The caller also reported the anglers as having several ice chests and was able to provide a description of the vehicle and a partial license plate number.

Game warden Gene Masse of New Rockford, N.D., responded to the call and contacted warden Chris Knutson of Devils Lake and a Benson County sheriff’s deputy for backup en route to the scene. According to Masse’s report, the deputy was the first to arrive and encountered the six anglers with coolers full of white bass.

Masse, upon his arrival, checked the anglers’ fishing licenses and found they all had been purchased earlier that day, which meant none of the fish legally could have been caught before July 1. North Dakota’s white bass limit is 35 daily, with 175 in possession.

“I asked them if they knew how many fish they had in their coolers,” Masse wrote in his report. “They did not know. I told them that they probably were in excess of their daily limit.”

Masse and Knutson then counted the fish, and the two wardens tallied 598 white bass in the coolers, along with four walleyes. Each of the anglers was more than 64 fish over his daily limit, Masse said.

Besides issuing citations, the wardens confiscated the anglers’ fishing gear, along with the coolers and the fish, the report said.

According to Paul Freeman, game warden supervisor for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department in Devils Lake, exceeding the daily limit of white bass is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by a maximum fine of $1,000 and 30 days in jail. Jim Wang, Benson County state’s attorney, was not available Wednesday to comment on the case

That makes me mad as a mofo…

Seriously….in this case, pull their license for life.

As the article stated, in that state this type of gross offense is only considered a class B misdemeanor. They’ll get a fine and some probation and likely lose fishing privies in N. Dakota for awhile. It just won’t be enough. If they fine them $1000 each that will sting a bit though.

Damn. I always see reports around here about people with 300 bluegills. Just makes a guy mad

The only problem I see with pulling the licsence, is that what they did is illegal, so what is going to stop them from fishing anyway?

I agree buddy…i was surprised they even bought one….but you’re correct, they probably won’t stop fishing.

Beat em

Don’t remember if this has circulated yet, but here’s a recent “busted” news release from the Wi DNR:

News Release

Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Northern Region Headquarters – Spooner
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
810 W Maple St. Spooner, WI 54801
Phone: (715) 635-2101 TDD: (715) 635-4001
For Release: July 2, 2004

Illinois Men Fined For Taking 229 Pan Fish Over Possession Limit
Chetek,Wis. – Two Illinois men were recently found guilty and fined $3,057 in a Barron County court for possessing 229 pan fish over the legal limit. Ricky Lee Mammond and John Eyman were staying on Prairie Lake and fishing the Chetek lake chain when, according to Conservation Warden Russ Fell, they were observed catching large numbers of crappies and blue gills.

On June 3, 2004 Fell and Conservation Wardens Phil Dorn, Jeremy Peery, and Lance Burns contacted the suspects at their resort and by consent conducted a freezer search. Eyman had 288 pan fish or 188 over the legal possession limit and Hammond had 141 or 41 fish over his limit.

The two suspects plead no contest and were found guilty on June 23, 2004 by Barron County Circuit Court Judge Edward Brunner. Hammond paid a fine of $676.75. Eyman’s fine was $2380.50 and his fishing and hunting privileges were revoked in Wisconsin for three years. All the panfish fillets were seized and will be donated to the Rice Lake food pantry.

Hey, hang around Prior Lake sometime and look at all the coolers, extra lines, April Walleyes, etc. I don’t understand why the DNR doesn’t do something about this as the bad guys aren’t sneaking around in the middle of the night.

The whole thing disgusts me.

Rootski

And just to keep the blood boiling , here’s a column written by the WI DNR warden for the Hayward area:

Overbagging panfish on Nelson Lake

WI Conservation Warden Sue Miller

Thursday, July 01st, 2004 04:47:09 PM

In the past five years, so many people have told me about how good the fishing used to be on Nelson Lake. They would say the panfishing used to be spectacular and they ask, “what is the DNR doing to restore it?” Well, for one thing, we have reduced the daily bag limit on panfish from 25 to 10 and the possession limit from 50 to 20. Our fish biologists have seen an improvement, but this success will be dependent on people complying with the bag limits.

Over the past few years I have received many calls and reports of people over bagging on panfish. With complaints coming in it seemed a good time to make a concentrated effort to curb the violations and give folks an incentive to comply with the law. During the week of June 4 through June 11, the bluegill and crappie were on the beds and catching was pretty easy. With the assistance of several conservation wardens we watched, we listened and we documented.

The results over that week of concentrated enforcement effort showed us that many people were complying with the laws and some were not. We arrested nine people in five groups of fishermen staying at various resorts, cabins and campgrounds. There were 604 panfish taken by these nine people, 424 of them were over the possession limit. Most of the nine people made multiple trips on a daily basis taking double or triple the limit. Six of the nine people had over their possession limit on the panfish.

If we issued tickets for every violation they were involved with there would have been 30 of them and the price tag would have been $19,357.45. We issued 11 tickets that totaled $5,816.50 and we seized their fish. It was clear by the end of the week that this was only the tip of the iceberg. If we had more time, more personnel and more funding, these numbers would certainly have been much higher.

The problem here is that this is one lake out of thousands of lakes, and it is naive to believe that it doesn’t happen on all of our waters with all of our fish species. Point in fact is that during this same week I assisted Conservation Warden Mark DiSalvo with similar violations on Lake Namakagon. We arrested three people who had been over bagging in multiple daily trips and over their possession limit on both panfish and walleye. They had taken 371 panfish and 20 walleye when they could keep a total of 150 panfish and 12 walleye. There were also two people who did not clean or care for their fish and wasted 46 panfish. They were all issued tickets in the amount of $4,300.00 and 371 fish were seized.

These 14 people involved in these violations are good people. They are your everyday average citizens who would give you the shirt off their back if you needed it. We ask ourselves, “why do people do these things?”

The fact is that most people don’t think about the accumulative affect they have on the environment. So you take an extra limit or two of fish, how is that going to hurt a lake? Multiply that by hundreds, year after year and what do you have left? Nelson Lake now has a bag limit of 10 to try and restore a good fishery. How long can our lakes sustain these types of abuses with so many people not complying with the rules?

We all need to do our part in protecting these resources for now and for the future generations.

Once again no comment from me. What I am thinking is way over the top “politically incorrect” but I’m sure MANY of you can guess what it is……….

This is just hear-say from someone whom I know telling me thar he has seen Hmong fisherman keeping everything they caught, including over limits of under sized bass. Do not want to appear prejudiced in singling out a specific group of people, but I do not believe that anyone is owed additional rights.

So if there are any DNR people monitoring these posts, here is a lead.

You can see this day in and day out at the ONALASKA SPILLWAY!!!

Have you driven thru Prescott lately? It’s unbelievable.

My 2 opinions:
The need new laws for “gross offenders” where they are treated as felonies. That would get the fines up.

They should also consider vehicles as fishing equipment if fishing from shore.

All other colorful comments I’ll keep to myself.

Just my opinion but I think the trail leads to commercial marketing of the fish.

I also think we need a felony gross violation law.

We actually had a person drop a phone number in the shout box 6 weeks back or so looking to buy quantities of game fish. At the time I was dumb enough to delete it and tell the guy it was illegal. He just claimed to “not know.” If I had my head about me I would have taken a screen shot and turned it into the DNR to have them set up a sting.

I never felt so stupid as I did shortly after deleting that post.

Maybe we need to go back to the Wild Wild West days of dealing with ’em.

Like rmartin said, I do not want to single out a specific group of people eiether, but I too have seen Hmongs around my area keeping undersized bass.

I have even seen them taking Lake Sturgeon out of season. Now that is worst of all, considering these things must reach 25 years of age to breed, then do it every 5 years.

It is very unfortunate to read what I am reading. I have seen the same thing for the last couple of years at the “rock wall” just before stodard. In addition, I see a ton of littering. What would be an easy way to get the correct people to know? I’ve tried to tell the fisher-person that the fish was too small, but I got the feeling that they didn’t understand me. It is all too bad.

i will call and turn in poachers and no matter what color their skin is. I think that breaking the law is breaking the law, no matter what happens.

shane

There was another bust today at the same spot.

The Game and Fish are watching.

This isn’t a color thing but an illegal fish buying network thing if I’m guessing right.

Kevin, please keep us updated as this progresses.

Quote:

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but I got the feeling that they didn’t understand me

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I’ve seen enough of this to know that they “choose” to not understand when it’s convienient.

see its people like that who gives us a bad name thats it just stupid! o hate people like that

Slop Bass hit it right on the head. I spoke to someone this weekend who knows a conservation officer that was involved in a bust. As he approached, they started chattering to act like they don’t understand the officer. Unfortunately, the officer spoke Hmong, and busted them.

I haven’t been at the sight of any illegal doings in a long time but it’s not beyond me to see the short bass go in the bucket, waltz right on over there and “Hey! Nice fish!” All friendly and “positive”………. pull out the tape and the fish and put it back in the water myself! I’ve gotten dirty looks but had the regulations with and pointed out the law. These people didn’t speak the language either but what they did understand is that I was enforcing rules. This only happened twice and neither time did anyone keep a short fish in my presence. I also saw where if I was around too much, they’d pack up and fish somewhere else.

We have the right to citizens arrest and enforcing the law through it. We take cameras for big fish pics……… use the zoom and take some pics of the activity. I’m sure the authorities wouldn’t mind putting some identity on the offenders.

That’s a great approach Mr. Positive! I like others complain about it…but never think of doing something about it…Which is just a change of mind set.
Did any of them get in your face when you returned “their” fish to the water? I guess that would be my only concern…being the little guy that I am

Well, it’s not like I was taking on Hulk Hogan or anything………. I was dealing with a father and 4 small children once but the second time I was outnumbered about 20 to 1, not counting the kids. All I can say is none of them intimidated me one to one and confidence can go a long ways. Now, if I could just discern that line between confidence and stupidity!

I do think it could end painfully some day, but I remain confident that even when being bold isn’t a good idea, I can still do something about it. With the law on our side, there are options and we shouldn’t feel guilty for using them.

well like Mr. positive there, i have done something about it one day, and I will never do it again. I watched some gentlemen take some shorties (largemouth bass) out of a lake while we were fishing on a fishing dock. I calmly walked over and started to talk to the guys, found out that they speak really good english. I asked them if they knew the rules regarding the lake and they both nodded yes. i then kicked over thier bucket emptying the contents of it back into the lake. I was freeing a bunch of willies and much to my surprise. they also had some really small sunnies and crappies in there. I am talking tator chip size, well ok the crumbs of a tator chip. I then told them that if i saw them put another small illegal fish in thier bucket, i was calling the game warden. I ended up with 3 flat tires at the landing when i decided to leave a long while after they left. with 3 flat tires and 1 spare, i didn’t fare out to well. I then realized that sticking my nose into thier affairs was really non of my business. I just should have used my cell and called the cops.

shane

No reason to be a hero or a private police force. Let the professionals handle the situation:

MN 1-800-652-9093
WI 1-800-847-9367

I’ve called the WI tipline twice this year. With the welfare of young and growing family to think about, I’m not in any position to get my *&^!@ kicked because someone wants to harvest an undersized walleye or bass. I will however not hesitate to get a pro on the phone when one of OUR resources is being unlawfully exploited.