New York Environmental Conservation Officers (ECOs) had a busy spring busting poachers for catching and hiding striped bass before the season opener on April 15. Over the last two months, officers have obtained over 90 illegally-possessed fish—some of them hidden in the sand, behind rocks and logs, and strangely enough, underneath traffic cones.
On March 16, uniformed and undercover officers hit up striped bass hotspots on overnight patrols. One unsuspecting angler, unknowingly fishing next to an undercover officer, reeled in a couple stripers and kept them. The undercover officer called in ECOs Ableson and Keegan, who ticketed the angler for possession of the out-of-season fish.
A few weeks later, a group of anglers was filleting a striped bass in Pelham Park on March 29 when ECOs Swart and Ableson discovered them. The fish was confiscated, and the anglers were issued a ticket and advised that they could keep fishing but must release any striped bass.
The officers left but observed the group from afar. Sure enough, they continued to catch and keep stripers, hiding them about 20 yards away in the rocks. The ECOs returned and ticketed the anglers again—they could pay more than $2,500 in fines.
On April 6, ECO McCarthy watched multiple people catch and keep stripers near Caumsett State Park. To help find where the perpetrators were stashing their catch, Officer McCarthy called in for backup—ECO DeRose along with his K9 partner, Cramer.
Cramer alerted the officers to multiple fish buried in the sand, squirreled away behind logs, and hiding in brush piles. That night, the ECOs recovered 16 striped bass, all between 25 to 35 inches. Several subjects were ticketed.
The most creative hiding spot was discovered on April 7, when ECO Pabes investigated a report of three anglers keeping stripers on the Bayville Bridge. When the officers confronted the anglers, they denied possessing any fish.
Officer Pabes searched the area and found seven stripers hidden inside traffic cones across the bridge. ECO Pabes issued tickets for illegal possession of fish during a closed season and for failure to carry marine registry.
Unless you like your bass chowder seasoned with asphalt and road dirt, it’s difficult to understand why someone would even want to eat a fish that had been chilling in a traffic cone rather than a cooler. But it’s also pretty difficult to understand why someone would be poaching a game species out of season to begin with.
Sure, it can be difficult to let a good-eater fish swim away when you have a bass melt on your mind. But it’s our legal and ethical duty as anglers to abide by the seasons and limits put in place by wildlife management—it ensures that we’ll have this incredible public resource to share and enjoy for years to come.
As of today, May 1, the New York DEC updated its striped bass fishing regulations. Anglers may keep one bass between 23 and 28 inches long. The bag limit remains unchanged: one fish per angler per day. This slot limit is in an effort to maintain population numbers by protecting spawning females. Click here to learn more and check out more specific fishing regulations.
Images via New York DEC.