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Posted by on November 09, 2005 at 11:50:18:
A Humboldt County Superior Court judge has given three fishermen the gaff for poaching dozens of fish and crab from an area closed to fishing. Judge Christopher Wilson fined the men $2,800 each and took away their sport and commercial fishing privileges for a year. Ted Ronald Blair, 32, of Shelter Cove, Christopher Columbus King, 34, and Samuel Dakota Stafslien, 32, both of Whitethorn, took 183 rockfish, 20 ling cod, two off-limits canary rockfish and 57 Dungeness crab off Shelter Cove. Blair and Stafslien were sentenced Monday, while King was sentenced on Oct. 17. Stafslien also received a 30-day jail sentence. The men were busted on April 10, 2005, after a California Department of Fish and Game warden spent six hours watching the men fishing from the boat in a closed area. The warden examined their catch when the men came ashore. The catch was well beyond the limits for the fish even had the area been open. ”Sport fishing regulation are designed so sport-fishers cannot take commercial limits,” said Deputy District Attorney Paul Hagen, “because otherwise there will be nothing left to catch.”
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