California Wildlife Officers Make Over-the-Limit Fishing Bust

A fishing vessel out of San Diego came back with 199 fish over the limit.

The Red Rooster III Inc., a commercial passenger fishing vessel out of San Diego Harbor, was met by wildlife officers from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife upon its return to San Diego Bay after a six-day fishing trip in Mexican waters.

Vessels fishing the sovereign waters of Mexico must abide by its rules, which allow "possession of three daily bag limits of several species of fish for multi-day trips."

"The vast majority of CPFV operators abide by the law and offer anglers excellent fishing opportunities," said David Bess, Deputy Director and Chief of the Law Enforcement Division.

Unfortunately, this time that was not the case.

Wildlife officers that boarded the Red Rooster seized 96 yellowfin tuna, 46 dorado and 57 yellowtail—a total of 199 fish over the legal limit.

When wildlife officers boarded the boat, they reported being met with the full cooperation of the captain and crew, who fully admitted to being over the limit.

Amazingly, wildlife officers allowed each passenger to leave their daily bag limit of three fish, but they didn't go so easily on the vessel operators.

"The September 2017 case was settled in recent weeks when the vessel's captain plead guilty to possession of fish illegally taken outside the state and importation of fish without declaration," the California DFW Facebook post read. "He was sentenced to five days of public service work and $40,000 in fines, $37,000 of which has already been paid to the court."

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