Posted by brianc on June 11, 2002 at 15:47:59:
In Reply to: Abalone Legalities posted by seahunt on June 11, 2002 at 14:36:13:
It would be best for you to ask a game warden up here before you do that. How they react will likely depend on how they interpret "possesion."
The regs sound solid, but everything is open to interpretation. I spoke with someone at a party Sunday who had an interesting story. He was camping up in Mendocino. He had some shelled abs in a cooler. Some partying kids ran amuck in the campsite and snagged his cooler while he was elsewhere. He found his cooler just before he left and tossed it in his truck. He was stopped at a check point and remembered the abs at the last minute, so he told them what happened. He was cited for abs out of the shell. His citation did not show in the mail, so he contacted the Mendocino Co. D.A (who is a diver). The D.A. told him that the officer wrote his story on the citation. The D.A. said that if he was transporting the abs to eat that day, the citation would be treated as a warning. The D.A. also said that was his interpretaion of the law and that others did not agree.
Anyway, the point is that there is flex either way and you should check with the people who are going to be interpreting the law before you try to get creative.