Guys like these should be banned from fishing for life…
I hope these guys lose everything that they have.....They should be banned from fishing in any state for life... Article published May 07, 2010Ohio intolerant of anglers going hoggish on fish Six fishermen from Tennessee and Georgia face the loss of their three bass boats and other gear after being charged with 30 counts of taking over the daily creel limit of smallmouth bass on western Lake Erie. [font=>][/font]"This is the worst case I have ever seen of bass overbagging," stated Gino Barna, Lake Erie law enforcement supervisor for the Ohio Division of Wildlife. The men are charged with illegally taking at least 141 smallmouth over the limit during a recent stay on South Bass Island. Smallmouth bass are highly prized for their sporting challenge and most fishermen keep them only rarely if at all, favoring walleye and yellow perch for the table. The six men charged include Freelan C. Leffew, 66, of Soddy Daisy, Tenn., his son, Michael Todd Leffew, 38, of Hixson, Tenn.; Freddie Warren, 63, of Wildwood, Ga.; Charles H. Burkhart, 67, of Ringgold, Ga.; Samuel J. Carroll, 65, of Ringgold, and Herbert Samuel Stephens, 58, of Soddy Daisy. All six entered guilty pleas on the charges on Monday in Ottawa County Municipal Court before Magistrate Lou Wargo. They are set to be sentenced June 2. Do any of you guys know these jokers??? Each charge is a fourth degree misdemeanor carrying as maximum penalty of 30 days jail and $250 fine. The state also is seeking state-prescribed restitution for the illegally taken bass at $50 a fish, for a total of $7,050, along with forfeiture of the boat rigs and freezers. The men also could lose fishing privileges in Ohio for three years. Barna gave this account of the case: State wildlife officers on the lake were running a seasonal surveillance project, watching of over-limit angling and multiple trips, between April 25 and 30, on the eve of the May 1 closing of the bass season on Lake Erie for spawning. The six out-of-state anglers arrived on the island by ferry with their trailered bass boats and two freezers. Wildlife lawmen observed three boats making multiple daily trips, as many as three a day. "We watched them fish all morning," Barna said at one point of the surveillance. "We knew something was up." The arrests were made last Friday. Barna said that lawmen can prove the six men took 141 bass over limit, "but they admitted to more than that." The daily legal limit on Erie bass is five, except during the closed season, which is May 1 through June 25 this year. No bass may be kept and only catch-and-release angling is allowed for bass during closing. The supervisor said in the arrests officers seized 155 bags of frozen, chunked fish and also seized 20 more bass that had not been frozen. The freezers were seized along with the three boat rigs. Barna said a lot of out-of-staters bring along freezers to Lake Erie. "There are not a lot of places you can catch so many fish like you can here," he said. "The sad thing was in this case, half of their fish were females staging for the spawning season." Since Ohio does not have possession limits on fish, it legally is possible to keep, say, seven limits of fish for seven days of fishing. But the six anglers are accused of going far beyond that. Barna noted that Ohio law is written such that fish must be kept "in the round" or filleted with the skin attached when "on the water." That includes anyone bringing back fish on a ferry from the islands. Cleaning and chunking fish is a method poachers can use to cover up the numbers and species of fish they have taken. http://www.toledoblade.com/app...70369
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This is just despicable!! These low-lifes should not only be banned from Erie, but from any lake in America. I hope the judge confiscated their boats, tackle and vehicles and forced their sorry butts to walk back home.150 smallmouth is 300 filets–NO ONE needs that much fish in a freezer to eat.This is what we see on Sardis and Enid in North MS for crappie; Troy Jenns has documented it at Guntersville on bass; and Aaron Martens commented on it during the Pickwick event last week. Keeping crappie or bluegill for a meal is one thing; killing hundreds of spawning bass is irresponsible, insane and just plain wrong!!Mike Whitten/Germantown, TN
Sad, Sad Sad!!!(I think we have a couple of Cat owners in Soddy Daisy, both I beleive are firemen, but would never be involved with something like this.)Last edited by dblplasabre on May 8th, 2010, 12:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
We do have two cats (three owners My son & share the one if paying for) in Soddy Daisy. I do not specifically recognize the names, I am embarrased that these low lifes are from Tennessee and appaled they are from Soddy Daisy. Makes me wonder what they are doing on our lake. My son (Corey) caught nice largemouth in the last few years 8.12, he weighed, photod, and measured the fish, let it go, and had my cousin make him a mount. Blake (sdfd 504) caught a very nice 8.14 last week, he also weighed, photod, and measured his female before releasing it. He is going to have a fiberglass model for the wall. I was/am very proud of each since they are in thier early 20s and care about conservation for our sport.
No different anywhere you go. this is not just a Tennessee, or Georgia issue, and is no different than some locals in south Texas cutting the sides off 6-9 lbers so us tourist cant catch them. Its just greed. whether its deer poaching or fish, dont matter, put them under the jail, imho.
dbasketman wrote:No different anywhere you go. this is not just a Tennessee, or Georgia issue, and is no different than some locals in south Texas cutting the sides off 6-9 lbers so us tourist cant catch them. Its just greed. whether its deer poaching or fish, dont matter, put them under the jail, imho.while i personally would never clean a big bass for eating, to call anyone who might do so “greedy” is a bit much. some of those “locals” in south tx live in a house that in many cases are actually worth less than your bass boat, because its all they can afford. theyre not cleaning bass so “tourists cant catch them.” theyre doing it to feed their families. bass was a food source for most southerners long before they were tournament targets…sorry.the laws are in place for a reason, and if the tx wildlife and fisheries say its okay to keep eight-to-ten fish (at whatever size they determine), than anyone is welcome to catch, keep and clean eight-to-ten fish AND EAT THEM..even if theyre TEN pounds. as for those over-the-limit guys, i dont care if those sorry s.o.b.s get “chunked and frozen”…even if theyre trying to feed a school-full of orphans.
Yeah it is a disgrace to have these guys giving our area such a bad name. Being from Soddy Daisy I dont know these guys but I can only imagine what they have done to our lake and not gotten caught. I hope they throw the book at them and revoke their license in tennessee as well. We dont need guys like them fishing anymore.
Regarding greed– people USED TO have to do a lot of things for food. Were fortunate that times have changed and even the poorest among this country have many far more economical ways to find sustenance than fishing for bass, regardless of what might have once been acceptable. Even in my short lifetime, I can remember a time when we occasionally ate bass for dinner because we needed the cheap meal. The fact is, now, it simply costs too much to catch bass in a freshwater lake (boat, gas, equipment, time, etc.) for any argument to justify doing that as opposed to the many alternatives we now have for feeding ourselves and our families. Even in these troubling economic times, its important for the future of our fisheries that we not lose perspective on the sheer prosperity of this country. We truly do live in the land of milk and honey, and were blessed not to have any understanding (for the most part) of the very cruel realities of widespread hunger and starvation. We must always be good stewards of our resources and let nothing, including what we once accepted as necessary behavior, get in the way of that.
i hope that with some of them a>holes being from Tn. that it doesnt reflect badly upon all of us. they are the few bad apples and im glad they got caught and get what they deserve…….
Being from the Chicago area, a lot of people want to lump us in with what is happening in Washington.
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