Was finally able to sneak away for a couple hours of fishing
yesterday evening at Langlois Lake in nearby Carnation. Took my
pontoon boat and worked the east shore up past the outlet, persuading
a dozen or so happy (hapless?) planters to temporarily impale
themselves on a #18 BWO.
I didn't pay much attention to the rest of the fishers trolling
hardware from boats out in the middle until one approached and the
occupant hailed me. He identified himself as a WDFW enforcement
officer and asked to see my personal floatation device.
Fortunately, I was wearing my SOSuspenders and showed him. He also
asked to see my license and to know which vehicle in the lot was
mine. He radioed his partner to verify that it had a new yellow
Access Stewardship sticker on the rear window.
We chatted for a while and he told me they had made a list of parked
vehicles without stickers and were in the process of finding their
owners and writing citations. He said they're under orders to step up
enforcement and that he'd already written more citations than in all
of last year. (Guess that's one way to pay for the licensing
machines!)
After he left me, he found the owner of a stickerless truck in a
nearby rowboat who also had his young son on board. Not only was the
son not wearing a PFD, there were none in the boat. The poor guy
protested that he had his yellow sticker still attached to his
license, but his complaints didn't help.
No yellow sticker on the truck; child under age 12 not wearing a PFD;
no PFDs on board: cha-ching - a $100 ticket.
On the way back in, he picked up another boat, likewise without
floatation devices. No PFDs on board: cha-ching - a $30 ticket.
When I pulled out, the wardens had just left, leaving the two boat
owners grumbling about how the guys could really ruin a good time
fishing.
First time I'd ever been checked and thought I'd better share the
experience with the list.
Kent Lufkin
