Okay, I talked to the wildlife officer in my area. Unfortunately she told me there really isn't anything they can do after the fact but that it was great I wrote down their license plate numbers.
She did tell me one really interesting thing: CALL 9-1-1 if a violoation is in progress. WSP acts as dispatch for WDFW enforcement. I was surprised, so I confirmed with her, asking, "So it's perfectly appropriate to use 9-1-1 to report poachers?" She confirmed it. She said I should get as much info as possible, descriptions of the individuals, license plate numbers, etc. So, no more fussing with 800 numbers and all the touch tone menus when I witness a violation. I'll call 9-1-1 and then try to delay the perps by chatting them up about the fishing (hehehe). -tight lines- Jim -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Speaker Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 5:02 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: Cedar River: poachers! They had spinning rods, that's all I can really say about their tactics. Not sure if they were fishing lures or bait though. They were (acting as if) unaware of the single barbless hook rule too. I enumerated the whole thing for them. They weren't hostile but didn't seem too genuinely appreciative of my third degree, albeit polite... One of them did say as they were leaving, "well we won't keep any more." Hopefully that was true but I'm not optimistic about it. -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 15, 2004 3:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Cedar River: poachers! Thanks Jim. Guys like that deserve to have their fishing gear confiscated and a big fine to boot, and maybe even a loss of their licenses for a while, if they had them in the first place. I'm curious. Not that it makes any difference, but did you notice if the poachers were fly fishermen or gear guys or maybe bait flingers? Were they hostile when you confronted them? Bob
