Now that the cold weather has locked in till mid-February or even March in the Chesapeake Region there are far fewer fishing opportunities. Sure, you can go fishing, but why near freeze to death to not catch anything in frigid water?
Category: Boating
The investigation in this case started in February 2011 when the Maryland Department of Natural Resources found tens of thousands of pounds of striped bass snagged in illegal, anchored nets before the season officially reopened.
The conspirators were seen on the water in the vicinity of the illegal nets. The subsequent investigation unveiled a wider criminal enterprise to which Hayden and Lednum pleaded guilty on Aug. 1, 2014. Co-defendant Kent Conley Sadler, 31, also of Tilghman Island, previously pleaded guilty to his participation in the conspiracy and is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 21, 2014. Hayden and Lednum face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
The defendants have agreed to pay restitution to the state of Maryland of between $498,293 and $929,625. The defendants have further agreed to forfeit the monetary equivalent of 80 percent of the value of the vessel primarily used during the conspiracy.
The State of Maryland has highlighted the actions of Maryland State Police and Natural Resources police using satellite technology, helicopters and watercraft as officers issued citations for poaching, undersize catches, and raids by pirate watermen on oyster sanctuaries. Two men who were subjects of arrests and issuing of citations are featured here along with results of when they appeared in court. They are brothers, Benjamin Leonard Reihl and Adam Vincent Reihl.
Benjamin Leonard Reihl
Chestertown, Md. — Benjamin Leonard Reihl was charged by Maryland Natural Resources Police Officer Rogowski with three counts of possession of undersized oysters on March 21, 2014 and in Talbot County District Court on June 19, 2014 was found guilty and fined $277.50 plus court costs of $22.50.
As Reihl appears to find Maryland rules for watermen and motor vehicle laws inconvenient to him, this PIRATE KING BOX SCORE is provided for our readers as well as for Reihl and his younger brother Adam.
Court records reflect Reihl using the Maryland Public Defender system on one occasion and only once hiring a private attorney; thus the money he saves on lawyers is used on paying fines. But court records reflect that on nearly a half dozen occasions he has been granted a deferred payment status by the courts, meaning that he was able to negotiate plea deals with prosecutors without the help of attorneys and then was able to have his payment deferred.
CRISFIELD, MD. – Natural Resources Police report that the piracy and poaching of oyster sanctuaries in the Chesapeake Bay by the persons most likely to see a direct benefit of the effort to perpetrate oyster harvesting in the future continues.
Police say that two Crisfield watermen were charged Monday by the Maryland Natural Resources Police with illegally harvesting oysters from protected waters.
Using the Maritime Law Enforcement Information Network system of cameras and radar, two officers monitored Paul Franklin Tyler III, 29, and Jeffrey Alan Cuff Jr., 31, at 10 a.m. as they dredged for wild oysters in the buffer zone surrounding the Somerset Oyster Sanctuary near Tangier Sound.
For those of us who must stay through the winter, there is an excellent opportunity to catch fish that are both good to eat and will bite in the coldest of weather. Blue Catfish are prowling the fresher portion of the Potomac River above the Rt. 301 bridge and most of the other rivers that feed into the Chesapeake. Fresh cut bait is the ticket to guarantee a cooler full of these fish that have no limit or season placed upon them. White or Mud Shad and Alewives are my favorite baits for big Blue Cats. However, getting these baits fresh this time of year has proven challenging. Forget about using these baits if they have been frozen. If you’re going to brave the chill, you want to fill the cooler. That means you must have a bait the brutes are willing to bite on.
Poaching Violations for 13 bushels of oysters nets two watermen $527.00 fine each – Christopher Shannon Lewis, 42, of 14388 Cedar Lane, Greensboro, Md., and Henry Paul Saia, 18, of the same address in Greensboro, appeared in Queen Anne’s District Court on Jan. 7. Lewis was fined $527.50 in a plea deal with Queen Anne’s County States Attorney Lance Richardson. Richardson put seven other charges on the Stet Docket. Saia was fined the same amount. The approximate wholesale price that seafood dealers would have paid Lewis at the time he was cited was about $40 per bushel, which is about the same amount of the fine for each man. The plea deal did not involve any jail time.
Now, I never make a long trip without a full inventory of repair parts, tools, and tires. Though an additional eight hours of driving was a nuisance, I do not have any real horror stories to share though I have trailered boats since my teenaged years for many thousands of miles.
Surely, you have seen hapless mariners who have separated their tow vehicles or boats from their trailers on the highway or lost their whole rig, truck and all, down the ramp. Follow these simple lessons and you will not find yourself in such dire straits.
SALISBURY, MD. — In Wicomico County, just before noon on Monday, an officer on patrol in Salisbury noticed a truck filled with 24 bushel baskets of oysters. The truck did not display a tidal fish license number, as required by state law, and the bushel baskets were not properly tagged.
Severn Reid Mister Jr., 57, and Cody Eugene Cavalier, 23, both of Easton were each charged with 12 counts of failing to tag oysters.
They are scheduled to appear in Wicomico District Court on Jan. 6. If found guilty of all counts, each man could be fined a maximum of $6,600.
The bald eagle was under protection of the Endangered Species Act until 2007. It was taken off Maryland’s endangered species list three years later. But it remains illegal to shoot eagles without a permit from the U.S. Department of the Interior. A conviction carries a maximum fine of $5,000 and up to one year in prison.
Pushed hard, the sturgeon could pull the basswood canoe past it’s displacement speed. Brave Long Gone now had the first planing hull boat on the East Coast. With the fastest canoe in the Chesapeake region, he easily evaded Capt. Smith while he populated much of the upper Potomac River tidal basin with his progeny. In recent years, the guy with the coolest car got all the gals. Imagine how the Indian girls swooned when Brave Long Gone pulled his custom hewn basswood canoe into the cove with a monster sturgeon tucked beneath the bow.