herring poaching [Archive] - Striper Talk Striped Bass Fishing, Surfcasting, Boating

Mr. Sandman

06-01-2003, 05:32 AM

Officials fight run on illegal herring
As shortages and weather cut the Cape bait-fish supply, poaching becomes a lively, disturbing trade.

By JOE KILLIAN
Contributing Writer
They come at night, under cover of darkness, with large trucks to haul away the stolen goods. If they avoid the police and make a clean getaway, they can fence the hot stuff to any number of buyers, making hundreds of dollars for an hour's dirty work.

More than 40 herring runs, such as this one in Mashpee, have been built on the Cape to help the fish spawn in inlets and rivers. Permits are usually required for controlled fishing with small nets.
(Staff photo by STEVE HEASLIP)

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It may sound like the plot to a dimestore novel about international jewel thieves, but for Cape Cod residents, it's just another night in the life of a herring poacher.

To the untrained eye, herring don't look like much. They're rather small to eat, and nothing you'd photograph or hang above your mantle. But to Cape anglers, these little creatures are as good as gold - the best bait for landing the striped bass they'll chase all summer.

"That's what catches stripers," said Tom Leach, harbormaster and natural resource director for Harwich. "They're the best bait when used live, so when poachers come and they take 100 [herring] out of the river, they're not using them themselves. They're selling them."

With Cape fishermen landing stripers in record numbers for the last three years, according to the state Division of Marine Fisheries, bait shops are seeing a rush for herring this summer. But, according to local town officials, past herring droughts and recent cold weather have shortened the herring spawning season, leading to fewer herring in the rivers and ponds on the Cape. That's bad news for legitimate fishermen, but good news for poachers.

With demand high and supply low, unloading poached herring isn't hard. Cape bait shops are eager to shell out $.50 to $1 apiece for the fish, which they then sell at a $1 each if they're frozen, or as much as $5 each if they're alive. Some enterprising poachers even cut out the middle man at the shop, selling the fish directly to anglers on the beach for a couple dollars apiece.

For someone stealing 200 herring in one trip, that could mean a profit of $100 to $200 by unloading them at a bait shop, or as much as $400 by selling directly to fishermen.

Scarce fish, brisk trade
"I've already completely sold out of my frozen herring," said Gary Kenney, owner of Cape Cod Charlie's Bait and Tackle in Buzzards Bay. "They're hard to come by this season. Anybody who's got them can sell all they can get. "
According to Kenney, the fish will be an even hotter commodity next week, when the herring season ends and fishermen will have to use the ones they've frozen or move on to other bait.

However hard the times, Kenney said he only buys herring from sellers with town-issued permits, but he has been approached by poachers.

"Just last week, a couple of 20-year-old-kids came in and wanted to sell 600 herring," Kenney said. "We knew they were poaching, when they come in with that quantity. We didn't buy them. But I'm sure they found some place to sell them."

Some shops said with the herring so scarce, they'll buy the fish, no questions asked.

"The way things are you can't get herring anywhere," said Glen Noftle, manager at Roy's II in Bourne. "So if someone wanted to sell them without a permit, I wouldn't really care. We might check - but if not, then they're breaking the law, not us. We're not responsible."

Some fishermen said they buy their bait right on the beaches, from men with buckets full of herring.

"They might be poachers and they might not," said Tom Sheen, 63, of Yarmouth, who said he retired to the Cape for the fishing. "But they're the ones who've got the herring. If you can't get it any other way, you just buy it where you can. I wouldn't do anything illegal myself, but I'm buying if they're selling."

Not a bad night's work
Herring return to Cape streams and inlets every summer to spawn - attracted when the waters inland become warmer than the ocean. They're helped along the way, in the deepest parts of the river, by man-made water steps, or "ladders." It's usually here that towns on the Cape set up herring runs, which are designated spots for controlled fishing with small nets.
More than 40 herring runs have been built on Cape Cod, from Falmouth to Truro, and on Martha's Vineyard.

Recreational fishermen are usually allowed to take six to 24 herring a day, depending on the town, but that's not enough for poachers.

Mashpee herring warden Mike Rose said since the season began in April he has often pulled from the river nets, logs and makeshift dams that poachers use to divert the fish. Mashpee police have been staking out the runs at night to help collar poachers.

Rose said a dozen violators have been fined this season in Mashpee, but many others haven't been caught. Poachers can be fined anywhere from $50 to $300, or even have their vehicles confiscated, Rose said.

"They'll drive trucks up and just take a hundred fish out of the river if you let them," said Rose. "I've even caught two poachers in broad daylight."

Mashpee is one of the towns that's been hit hardest by the increase in poaching this season. This year, the town's comparatively small herring run has been overfished so heavily that local fishermen said they can't get the 12 a day their permits allow.

"We're getting really concerned about the future of the run," said Paul Collins of Mashpee. He said he's seen the effects of poaching firsthand.

Collins and other recreational fishermen are putting together a petition to have the Mashpee herring run shut down next year to let the fish recover from this year's poaching.

"It's sad, but these people who are poaching don't realize what they're doing to the fish," said Collins. "It could affect the run for years to come with the number of fish they're taking."

Smaller runs hit hardest
Officials in towns with larger runs, like the one in Harwich, said they've pretty much solved their poaching problem with increased security, including locking their runs down at night.
"We used to have a lot more problems with poaching," said Leach, the Harwich warden. "We've seen guys with trucks taking a couple hundred fish. There used to be nights where it looked like a highway out there and the neighbors would complain. But now we've got a team of wardens looking out and the whole run gets locked up at sunset."

Leach said runs with larger staffs and harbormasters' offices allow people to contact authorities if they see poaching, or call in if they have questions about what's legal.

"Some towns like Mashpee and Brewster don't have offices," Leach said. "Their wardens are good guys and they take their jobs seriously, but it's not their full-time job. They do other things and have small staffs. People don't know how to get hold of them, they don't know how to make reports. So in that way it makes sense if they're getting more problems [with poaching]."

Leach said Harwich's run - usually one of the better, more robust spots for herring - is having the worst season he can remember this year. With herring scarce at even some of the busiest runs, Leach said the pressure of fishermen and poachers is affecting other towns.

Brewster is one of the towns feeling that pressure. While the town had one of the only runs where herring were running well, the town also saw more poaching than the three-person staff could handle.

"I've never seen so much poaching in my life," said Dana Condit, chairman of the Alewife Committee of Brewster. "When Harwich and some of the other runs started putting more people on watch and locking their runs down at night, the poachers just came to our area. It's been terrible and we're going to have to change our whole system next year because of it."

Condit said Brewster now has one of the Cape's more relaxed herring runs. No permits are necessary, and each person can take up to 24 fish. But Condit said poachers with tank trucks capable of hauling off hundreds of live fish at a time have ruined that.

Next year the limit will be cut in half, security will be increased and anyone looking for herring must have a town-issued permit.

"I never wanted to make these changes," said Condit. "But we've got to do something."

This year's poaching was so bad, said Condit, that even commercial fishermen were getting in on the act by taking hundreds of herring in the night to use onboard their boats or for sale on the docks.

"They could lose their licenses for that," said Condit. "And next year, when things change, they will when we catch them.

"We're going to have to be ready for them next year," Condit said. "Wecan't go on this way and neither can the fish."