Northwest Fishing Reports

My local favorite trout lake has been discovered by two very different, but similar minded recent immigrant groups; I'll say one is Russian or Ukranian and the other Asian of some sort. This lake has very limited bank access and both of these particular indiviuals and their friends are showing up pre-5am-ish to grab the better spots. This past Monday, I observed an older Asian angler continue fishing well after his retenation of 5 trout. I called WDFW Enforcement upon arriving home; however, the shorthanded WDFW local office had no Officers to respond. Today, my wife and a fellow angler observed this same Asian male get joined by a fellow country man. Both started catching fish and putting the trout one by one in their car trunks. I did a low key, write down of license #'s, but I suspect I was "made"; as the first one to limit slowly picked up his gear and departed with a bunch of comments in a foreign language to his friend. The other one limited shortly thereafter and a Russian angler, speaking broken English asked him, "Why was he leaving?" Looking in my direction the Asian male responded, "I guess I have to...I've caught my limit... 5 trout." They both laughed and the Asian departed.

My wife asked if the disregard for things like fish limits is an ingrained cultural thing and do these people's countries of origin even have things like fish and game laws? Frankly, I don't know? Your guys' thoughts on the subject?

yes

no

if they did in their 'old' countries, then they just don't give a crap.

Cultural or not - If you writing down license plates makes em nervous and stop - then they know what they are doing is wrong. I say - keep it up. No confrontation needed. I have done this with shady people parked in front of my house. Walk out with a pad of paper, make sure they see me, write down the license number, smile, start dialing on the cell. It doesn't take long for em to move on..

I've seen this at several lakes. I've called the game department and they have responded.

I was fishing Lenore one fall and got to the lake just as it was starting to get light. As my headlights shined down on the shoreline, two men quickly reeled in their lines and grabbed a very large cooler (probably 150 quart) and struggled to get it up the hill. At 5:30 a.m., with a temperature of 31º, I don't think the cooler was filled with beer on ice.

A couple of years later I was talking with a warden and mentioned that to him. He said that they finally caught the "group" that was doing the poaching and prosecuted them. They were taking massive amounts of Lahontons out of the lake.

I don't think it's a cultural thing. I think it's a greed thing. I know someone that works in the snohomish court house and tells me that it's all kinds of people getting busted. Not just Asians or Russians... Yes white and black people catch over their limit aswell....oh yeah, not to leave out the brown people too.... Don't want to come across a racist or anything like that......

All though there is no excuse for poaching or taking more than your limit… maybe these people came from areas with limited resources. They had to utilize every thing they could get their hands on and get as much as they could because they had large families to feed and didn’t know if tomorrow they would have anything to eat. When you have limited food resources, fishing and game laws are of little importance. Here in the good old USA most of us have never known hunger and consider fishing and hunting to be a hobby not a subsistence way of life. However, that being said, there is no excuse for breaking the law. Many of these folks have no respect for the laws. After all, how many are here illegally to begin with? Keep turning them in and letting them know that illegal acts will not be tolerated. Take pictures when you can, get a licensee plate number and description of the vehicle. Hopefully the game department can make a case and prosecute some of these guys to help get that message across.

T-Bone wrote:My wife asked if the disregard for things like fish limits is an ingrained cultural thing and do these people's countries of origin even have things like fish and game laws? Frankly, I don't know? Your guys' thoughts on the subject?

Yes, I'd say that it is cultural..... In that ALL CULTURES have people that do this sort of thing. It does stink no matter how it comes up.

I wish this was an isolated report, an isolated complaint, but it is not.

The state does not want us to take pictures, but I don't see how we can stop the problem if we don't.

Perhaps this would be a good item for Stacie to respond to.

next time the fish cops say they cant come.....hang up 'n call the sheriff maybe??....surely a huge cooler full is getting into a felony kinda beef....shouldnt matter what kinda cop shows up...might have to be a lil more tactful/discrete to pull it off though...just say'n....DOG

The State Police is SUPPOSE to take fish and game violation calls as well, and back up the WDFW.

It sucks that people are poachin Just keep reporting it and eventually they will get caught. Once I talked to a game warden and he was looking for a suspected poacher. They might not come the first time, but eventually they will come if it gets reported enough.

As far as why people are poaching, it could be greed or any other reason. The lower Duwamish has signs in several languages stating not to eat the fish and shellfish from there because of toxins, but people ignore the signs and harvest food for thier families. Some are just supporting thier large immigrant families. Im still against poaching,so Im not making excuses for anybody.

I guess in my post, I neglected to mention that the vehicles of the suspects involved are all one or two year old(?) newer, vehicles. I don't believe an empty stomach is the motivation.

I've encountered the "fish it until it drops to nothing" mentality in a wide assortment of people. However, this type of behavior seems disproportional in numbers with recent immigrant groups. In some cases, I do believe coming from a corrupt system encourages them to bend or break rules to get something and see no wrong in doing it.

I'll keep reporting any suspected poaching, but I fear my favorite lake will be fished out for bank fishing well before the end of Summer.

No, it transcends "cultural" lines IMHO. I have seen many people blatantly break such rules, Asian, Ukraine, and about any other race too.

It is not so much a "cultural" thing as it is IMHO, but either a blatant disregard for the rules, or worse yet lack of knowledge of the rules.

I've got the WDFW number on my phone for this kind of incident now.

I have to commend you for your actions, but please be careful. Some people you might encounter might not be as timid as the person that split and might be readily confrontational and/or even have a weapon.

One time a few years back when I was still relatively new to fishing for salmon, I had always wondered what snagging was. As a bass angler, if you're snagged, it usually meant for me that my lure was stuck and that I was probably going to lose my lure. @&!^*~!~~~

I checked out the Spokane Street bridge one time and it was surprisingly empty for a weekday in peak pink salmon season. Three anglers in addition to myself. A little old Asian lady, a skinny dark colored guy, a huge, Refrigerator Perry size guy (let's call him RP), and me.

I look at RP's rig and it seemed rather strange. It consisted of only a large treble to which a heavy egg-shaped lead weight was placed above. Now I know I was a newbie and had never seen a snagging rig of any kind, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to deduce the purpose of the rig.

So I walk up to him casually and said to him, "That's a cool looking rig you've got. I've never seen something like that. What's it called?"

His response was, "You know, some people get shot when they get into things that ain't their business."

So picture this; A huge person with the stature of the Refrigerator Perry against a tiny 5'5" little me and I'm exaggerating a bit on my height too.

I don't know where it came from, perhaps my sense of fidelity to the rules, but I got right in his face and said, "Well it is my F&#*^ng business when F&#*^ng people like you, break the F&#*^ng rules!"

Rarely have I ever felt such rage. I normally don't curse and couldn't believe I was cursing.

He could have easily picked me up with one hand, Darth Vader style and tossed me over the dock, but I stood my ground and stared him down.

It made him very nervous and he started pacing frantically back and forth.I pulled my phone out and told him I was calling WDFW and that pissed him off even more. He started mumbling words I couldn't make out initially until he got louder. It turns out he was talking in Spanish, and I started chuckling inside and blurted, "Hey! You don't F&#*^ng think I don't know Spanish?!!!"

I pulled out my phone and gestured like I was going to call WDFW and that really set him off.

Then a school came through and he tossed down. I tossed down at an angle with my braided line trying to snag his line but missed but I missed. His rig landed in the school and he didn't wait to yank back. Sadly, his treble got lodged in the back of salmon.

The little old Asian little was not aware of our encounter dropped her crab net to pull up his fish.

It wasn't a pink, but a coho. The first I had ever seen seen caught with my own eyes. It was strikingly fresh and blindingly silver.

He begged me not to call the WDFW, but I did when I got to my car and started driving off. The operator seemed to know exactly what I was about to say before I said it, which suggested to me that she was getting a ton of call like this. Her response was that they simply do not have the resources or the manpower to do much if anything. Sad, but true.

It wasn't until I nearly reached home that I realized how badly this could have gone. He could have had a gun, shady as he looked. I wasn't afraid to take him on. I would have judo-ed his fat ass to the ground using his weight against him, if he didn't toss me first.

Or getting killed or injured to the point I might not be able to take care of my family. The thoughts hit me like a ton of bricks.

Like I said, I commend you for what you did. We just need to be careful. We were both fortunate this time around.