Posted by JR Gordon on September 26, 2002 at 19:38:23:
In Reply to: another lobster question posted by nate on September 26, 2002 at 13:31:49:
A few years ago I went out opening night on my boat at Eagle Reef along with some friends on another boat. We tied up together and all dropped down at 11:45 after sitting in the water awhile. We were all impatient and thought who the hell really cares if we're a few minutes early. Besides we probably wouldn't actually catch anything until after midnight. Well, we were only down a few minutes when we were lit up by a diver with a off-road light array arranged neatly over his helmet(yes helmet). Totally lit up the landscape and we had several 50w halogens. He highlighted his badge and had us all surface. Up top there was a blacked out Fish & Game boat tied up to ours and several very grim faced officers who lectured us for 1/2 hour on the severity of hunting lobsters out of season (of course by now it was season). They were disappointed we didn't have any bugs in posession and finally left. We of course continued with our dive and later anchored for the night in Little Geiger cove. The same boat then boarded us at 4:30 in the morning with light blazing and a siren to wake us up(honest).They did a complete safety check of both boats including gear, registration, licenses, etc. They also measured each bug we had, I believe a total of 20 or so. After all was done suddenly that same diver with the headlight array surfaced from under the boats and said "nothing hidden down here".
Moral of the story.....don't piss off the Fish and Game guys. Next day when we returned to Marina del Rey we were again boarded and searched by the LA County Sheriffs. Coincidence?????