Illegal Netting Of Salmon Continues To Plague Washington

A little luck and old-fashioned police work led to the arrest of two suspected poachers.

State wildlife officials announced they caught a pair of salmon poachers using illegal nets on the Wishkah River.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife said today that netting in the Wishkah River has always been a problem, which led one officer to go on an old fashioned stakeout to combat the problem.

WDFW Police Officer Loc Do was acting on a tip when he located the net and sat alone in the dark.

Officer Do was alone when he could hear the sound of an outboard motor heading his way in the dark, but called in backup after convincing the approaching boat they were outnumbered over a loud speaker.

Do said the suspects cut power to the boat motor and began rowing the boat the rest of the way to the net. Officer Do figured his only chance to apprehend the two suspects was to create the illusion of having many officers.

That's when the officer returned to his vehicle and pointed his spotlight toward the suspects and announced in an overwhelming tone on his PA that they were surrounded and needed to row over to his location.

The officer reported the two suspects quickly conceded defeat and rowed over to him where they then waited for backup to arrive.

Once Officer Do had some backup from local Police, he went out with the suspects and pulled the net. The two suspects will be charged for the crime.

Crimes like this are all to common all over the state including in our area. To learn about how to report poaching, visit the WDFW info page.