The Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) said today that State Environmental Conservation (EnCon) Police Officers have arrested two men on violations of marine fisheries laws. The arrests occurred yesterday, October 4. The men arrested were David J. Hochman, 45 from Orange, Connecticut and John J. Warnock, 65 from Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The subjects were in possession of twelve striped bass which is 8 fish (4 per man) over the daily limit of 2 per person.

The officers, acting on a complaint, arrested the two men as they were attempting to offload the fish to a vehicle on Boulder Avenue in Stonington. The two men had begun their fishing trip at the state-owned Barn Island Boat Launch, also in Stonington. They are to appear in New London Superior Court on October 19, 2011.


Posted by Mermaid

Yup, they knew they were breaking the law and did it anyways. This clearly wasn't a case of negligence.

Rox, Addict and Don D all said it best!

Seriously, how long has this been going on for? I am certain all of these fish were for personal consumption ONLY! The only mistake they made was getting caught

CD

Fish,

I was definitely being sarcastic about the personal consumption. Sounds like they had a quite a side business going on. I believe Hochman is a chiropracter by day.

without a weight to the fish, its hard to tell what they brought in, but its easy to speculate that if they got a fined per pound, these two would be in the poor house... The penalties do add up with a lot of fish, thats why im a little disappointed that only got caught with 4 fish over the limit each, im sure they had days they brought a lot more in.. Without a big penality and a lot of attention, Its pretty easy for them to put this behind them, just get a RI license maybe even fish in CT too with that license next year...

If this is something Encon celebrates as a big bust, our tax dollars aren't being spent very well.

one of the dumbest things I have ever read on this site... not that my useless opinion means anything.......

I was waiting for that,... .......

Chris: Well, I suppose this can be looked at two ways:

1. The ENCON posted up this case because it was special.(go see the ENCON forum here) The question would by why? Special because this guy is famous as a World Spearfish record holder? Don't know really. If I this was me, and Encon chose to highlight my case and post it up for thousands to see, I would have a BIG problem with that. Unless of course they post up all similar arrests. (which I doubt)

or


2. The ENCON posted up this case because it is rare to catch guys keeping extra Stripers. (which would really concern me too)



Either way, I find it quite interesting. I don't know why this is a big deal? Like I said, I see a post of an arrest as being note worthy for some reason. The question is why. I would also hope that this isn't a big heist when we all know what goes on around us on the water.

I'm sure there is hard data on that number of enforcements each year, there must be some type of yearly summary report.

I would be curious to know that number,