Undercover sting operation off Sandwich nets alleged Striped Bass poachers
On Sunday night a small fleet of four boats motored out into Cape Cod Bay. The 50-foot 
patrol boat Thomas Paine, two smaller patrol boats and an undercover surveillance vessel joined a much larger fleet of well over 60 vessels fishing on a striped bass hot spot off Scorton Creek in Sandwich some time before midnight. Environmental Police were acting on tips from commercial and recreational striped bass fishermen that commercial fishermen were engaging in a practice called front loading, catching striped bass in advance of midnight on Mondays and Thursdays and storing them on board their vessel to sell as if they’d caught them the next day. Five commercial fishermen from the Cape and one from Belchertown were fined more than $1,000 in total, according to Moran. A total of $3,000 in fishing gear was confiscated. The fishermen were given civil citations for fishing during a commercial striped bass closure, possession of striped bass without a clipped fin and possession of an amount of fish over the daily limit for recreational fishermen. Read the story here 09:08
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