For those of you who have private lakes, I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

Out in East TX, someone broke the lock on our neighbors gate, drove down to the lake and used a net to seine out fish. Neighbor swears there are no less than 300 catfish that have just been thrown up on the bank to rot.

Why would someone do this. We do have the lake stocked with Florida strain bass. Do you think someone wants them in their tank? This took a lot of work and a fair amount of time. Would people go to that degree of labor to eat bass or crappie.

Lake is stocked with bass, crappie and catfish. There is a small blue gill population but they are kept thinned out by all the bass.

Your thoughts please....

This is one of those BS situations that no one expects to deal with... I HATE PEOPLE THAT DO STUFF LIKE THIS...

My thoughts; booby traps that will cause severe tire damage... either go to a welder or do it yourself, but get some rod iron cut at sharp angles, welded to some steel/iron plates, place them somewhere inconspicuous, and camouflage em (just don't forget they are there!)Then those degenerates will have a nice surprise next time they do that garbage!

The way I see it is there is only a handful of reasons that anybody would do this.
1) sheer jealousy - They aren't lucky enough to have a private lake so they destroy others (not very likely).
2)They are looking to stock their own pond at the expense of others.
3) They are hungry and need food.

None of them are good enough to go in and take large populations of fish and kill off some of the others. My gut is telling me that they were after one, or maybe two, type of fish and all the rest they saw as trash and let them die on the ground like inhumane jerks. We may never know why they did what they did, but with that many fish dead, it doubt that it was a 1-2 person operation. They probably had a small group. I would setup some traps like ColoradoTransplant mentioned or setup a night camera that people use for deer, at the entrance and let it take pictures of them coming in and out. I'm sure if setup in the right way you can get the license plate and report them to the police not only for trespassing, but for theft and vandalism.

This is not to be tolerated. Hope the problem gets fixed.

I agree with fisherman1 on the cameras. I have heard of sneak fishing ponds, hell I'm sure a lot of us did it we were young, but to take all those fish like that and leave hundreds of cats to rot on bank is EVIL. I would say that you probably know them. They sure knew your pond.

i agree with Fisherman 1 on regards to camera u even have them set up to where u get the pics straight to your computer. they can get charge for trespassing, vandalism, theft and transporting of fish. Good Luck pilot and i hope you catch this thieves.

when I lived behind the "Pine Curtain" (East Texas) the saying was "If'n its fish or watermelons it ain't stealin'."

a fish farmer friend got sick of the same problem, people using his net to steal his fish. So he set up some bear traps, caught two of 'em, both got broken legs and had to be hospitalized. Both went to prison. But that was over 30 years ago. Today the farmer would have been sued for all he owned, and the perps would have recieived big settlements.

Better in this day and time to just lay up and shoot the bass-turds in he act, making sure they're dead.

I do like the idea of a camera located where an identifaction might be made (at a gate or drive) so that the perps may be caught.

My guess is that this was just a stupid act, nobody was actually looking for anythng, just wanted to kill a bunch of fish and did so.

Genuine theft for ptofit would have included taking the catfish, the only thing that had any intrinsic value, and they were left to die on the bank. This is more like vandalism.

At the very least I'd file a report with the game warden and maybe the the sherrif.

Over the years I've had many fish stolen and the "fix" is to catch and prosecute somebody for it, then it stops.

Oil field workers once cleaned out a bass spawning pond, caught most of the big females and put them on stringer, took pictures, and showed them around the local diner, how I caught them. The drilling company paid for the fish and the lost crop.

At a catfish farm I managed I came upon a family set up on the pnd bank on one of the ponds by the road. They had a cooler, lawn chairs and a beach unbrella. I drove up and they showed me a stringer full of catfish, maybe 60 or 70 pounds. I told them this was priivate property, they were tresspassing and if they did not release the fish and leave immediately I was calling the law. They told me "we're from Alabama, if there is a pnd by the road anybody can fish in it." I told them this is Texas and you did not climb over fences to steal people's fishe here or you might get arrested or worse. I didn;t believe 'em anyhow, stealing is stealing no matter where it is.

Booby traps, wether designed to cause harm to people or property, is a good way to get yourself in big legal troubles. Not worth it to me for some fish.

I'd go with the game camera idea, near the gate and lake. If it's happening at night install some lighting. Decent solar powered lights can be bought for not all that much.

I would also post signs on/near the gate and fence with all the legal jargon about trasspassing and being procecuted. Since most folks dont know what purple markings on the fence post means.

Make sure to cover yourself legaly so when/if they try again and get caught, there will be no way they can play ignorant and pretend they didnt know they were tresspassing and doing wrong. Amazing what people can get away with in todays court system.

Pilothawk,

Its very important to show this will not be tolerated. Cameras, traps, signs, etc. should all be used...but a stakeout should be considered. These people generally know when no one is around and wait for those times to strike. If necessary, hire someone to do the stakeout. I know from personal experience this works....and once you catch them, then put the fear of prison in them.

The absolute worst thing would be to just let this pass. The ones that do this and get away with it will be bragging to others and the problems will persist and likely escalate.

Believe me, it is well worth it to catch these people and make an example of them.

The guy whose property they trespassed is well off. Oil money, I hear. He will have to be the one to put out cameras etc.

These thieves knew what they were doing. The only house that could have seen them working the nets is blocked by the dam. It is some ten to twelve feet high.

I would just like to know what they were after. There are people out there that would have enjoyed catching and eating those cats. This is wanton waste and I agree....it cannot be tolerated.

Install cameras or SSS.

Camera aren't effective deterrents unless they're visible - and they'd probably get shot or stolen in that case. Even if a hidden game-camera snapped photos of the perps, damage to the fishery will have occurred before the photos are even secured - or used to prosecute.

A few strategically placed t-posts, wrapped with barbed-wire and driven beneath the water-surface within areas that are subject to seining would sure rip up the perp's sein in a hurry.

I agree

Check this out -- it talks about the legality of booby traps here in TX:

http://blog.matthewharrislaw.com/index_files/BoobyTraps.htm

FWIW to some of you, it's Asian folk out siening
ponds and public waters. TPW is very much aware of this decades old issue
I have 3 rather large surface acre lakes that have all been hit.
My crappie pond is just getting back after 4 yrs recovering( majority of the population is over 1.5-2lb+.
Just $15k later .......