Pajama-wearing Fish Snagger Busted On Stillaguamish
True, you can work in your PJs these days, but snagging fish in them is dangerously cheesy.
That might be the lesson from Western Washington’s Stillaguamish River, where a poacher’s “very notable pajama pants” was a colorful part of their downfall story.
WDFW Police report that anglers had alerted them to a man who “was snagging fish repeatedly” early in the morning and then again later in the day.
It turned out that said snagger was familiar to agency wardens, with Officer Stephanie Tank believing that she’d ticketed the same bozo the week before after allegedly finding him with unlawful gear and unlawfully caught coho.
The Stilly was open in September for silvers, then closed October 1 as anglers neared the river’s Chinook encounter limit.
So, Officer Tank found herself a nice hidey hole to catch the guy and sure enough, “right on queue he arrived wearing very notable pajama pants.”
WDFW Police spokeswoman Becky Elder confirms they were the Men’s Chester Cheetah Sleep Pant, available for as little as $11.98 at Wal-Mart.
Officer Tank took video and pics of his “catch” of two fish in an hour, neither of which he recorded on his catch card, and which were also pretty remarkable given that the fish weren’t biting so well at the time, at least if you’d polled other Stilly anglers, WDFW stated.
“So, to have two fish within an hour would make you pretty lucky, if you were fishing legally,” officers reported.
The man suddenly left the river, but then returned 90 minutes later, sans those snazzy orange PJs.
Yes, they may be comfy and, yes, they may be warm, but after all, you can’t live your entire life in pajamas – especially when you apparently want to try and now be all incognito down at the river.
Officer Tank observed him “catching” another pair of fish in his new getup, but now it was time to bite into the dude about his “fishing.”
Upon contact, she asked him if he was going to lie about how he’d been doing on the river, to which he “very adamantly stated he was not,” WDFW reported.
Asked if he’d been fishing earlier in the morning, the guy said he hadn’t and the latest fish were the day’s only catch, agency officers stated on Facebook
Tank asked the question a couple more times just to make sure, then advised him she’d actually watched him fish in those striking orange jammie bottoms.
“At that point the fisherman knew he was had and admitted to catching fish earlier that morning. When Officer Tank asked why he was back to fishing unlawfully again so soon after being contacted less than week prior, the fisherman stated, ‘I never said I was smart, but at least I’m not using treble hooks and my barbs are pinched.'”
But you were still caught orange-jammied, er, red-handed, bub.
WDFW says that the fish were donated and charges are headed for the county prosecutor’s office.