re: Deep South Charters' Josh Howard sentenced for keeping illegal bluefin

Fwiw, I didn't start this thread to drag his name through the mud. I actually said I would book a trip with him again (and still plan to).

Good link. I guess this answers our question

If the fish was 500 lbs it would be longer than 73", I would think. I've fished tuna on numerous occasions and didn't know anything about bluefin regulations and have never really heard of anyone catching them. Sounds like Josh made some phone calls to verify if the fish was legal. Dunno, but what happened to the fish? Sounds like someone kept it??

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HMS Angling Category vessel is allowed one bluefin per day which has to measure between 27 inches and 73 inches

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This is for Atlantic

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This is for Atlantic

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I see that now and stand corrected, thank you kind sir! Maybe it was a shorty?

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Gotcha, thanks for the clarification. I read that as being the regulation in the GOM.

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It was. That article was written in 2010, however, and regulations have changed since then.

A "trophy" is allowed, but they have seasons on them.

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NMFS closed the recreational large medium/giant "trophy" BFT (73” or greater) fishery south of 39°18’N (off Great Egg Inlet, NJ), effective 11:30 p.m. local time, April 4, 2013. This closure INCLUDES the Gulf Of Mexico and applies to both HMS Angling category vessels and HMS Charter/Headboat vessels (when fishing recreationally).

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LINK

They do have a tendency to open and close these seasons, so it must have been closed at the time.

Also, from LDWF website:

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One bluefin tuna over 73 inches curved fork length, caught incidentally, may be kept per vessel per year during open seasons.

Incidental Trophy Season closes April 4, 2013, at 11:30 pm and will not reopen until January 1, 2014.

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LINK

So trophies are still allowed during open seasons.

I've got no dog in this fight and no knowledge of the situation, but I think charter captains should be pretty well versed in current regulations. It's not that hard to check the regulations websites. They hand out LDWF regulation pamphlets for free all over the place. Ignorance is no excuse.

It was told to me by the federal agent, who is a super nice guy by the way.....you used to be able to have one accidental catch but 3 days before we caught ours a moratorium went into effect and you can no longer even have that one.

I may have been off on the felony with the gun rights, my lawyer never said that, this is what I thought to be true, I am guessing that would have came up had we have gone to trial.

Here are some of my issues. The state didn't even do enough research to find out that I was not even the captain and it wasn't my boat or permits, we had to tell them. They never even let me see the subpoena before arresting me. The first time I read that was when they came to my house like 5 days later. I was pissed that they felt like they had to come to the marina and put on a big show in front of everyone. The subpoena was written for my home address, they could have been professional about it and come there. They did not even make one attempt to come to my house even though the subpoena was 28 days old when they finally used it. I wasn't even supposed to be on the boat that day. We had blown a lower unit on the boat, I was already in Venice and I told gray I would stay and help him fix it, he picked up one from outcast in new Orleans that night and it was about 2am when he made it down. After he woke me up and we changed the lower unit, he was working on very little sleep and was going to run with no deckhand that day, I felt bad for him and went to help out. If the lower unit had not gone out, I wouldn't have even been there.

The fact that I didn't know the season was closed, I don't know what to say other than myself and Gray did not know. The guy that said its like shooting a big duck in teal season....that's almost the same other than I see big ducks every teal season, I have never seen a Bluefin in my life nor do I know anyone else that has. The chances of us landing that fish was 1 in a million, so no, I do not keep up with blue fin season because we never ever see them. I have enough bs to keep up with, they change seasons and limits every day around here, hard enough to keep up with the fish we do catch.

The state acted like I was some kind of hard core criminal. I had nothing on my record . I do not claim to know everything and I do not claim that I never do things wrong, I know everyone on the forums know it all BUT I DO NOT. Only tried to make a living doing what I love. I help out folks when I can, I may not be the nicest guy you will ever meet but I do what I can when I can. I am real, that all I can tell you.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't have tossed the phone. It wasn't worth it. They put me in a corner and I was so mad that my emotions got the best of me. They thought they would find pics of this fish at the dock and never did. If you read what was released they make it sound like they found the smoking gun, he gave pics of the illegal fish> Well, no I didn't. I gave them pics of a fish on the boat offshore and then it was thrown back. We thought we could keep it, found out we couldn't and threw it back. Not much different that catching a red snapper out of season, taking a pic and throwing it back to float. Its still dead, its still out of season, you still caught it but the difference is, you never brought it back to the dock and neither did we.

The captain was let off with a written warning so this must have really been a serious crime. And if you think for a min that they let me go with a slap on the wrist because they had all of their ducks in a row and they had good evidence then you are just being silly. They fought this like it was the murder trial of the century. They put divers in the water and recovered my phone, multiple man hours spent on this. For what, 800 dollars in fines? Sounds like the state got a good deal on that one. Tax dollars at work.

I am pretty much over all of this, I just like the cats that know nothing but know everything about what happened. Just like he said pictures were posted on line but I be damned if we have seen them here even after I put up 1000 bucks for it. I will say that who ever he is, he seems to know a lot. Or atlease know a lot about what the state thought. With him saying its because of his job and he was there when I got arrested, almost seems like one of the state officers. Atleast I don't hide behind a screen name. You know exactly who I am. Even on the stand the other officer admitted under oath that he saw everything but he never saw the officer give me the subpoena . We had 3 people that were going to testify that he didn't. Would that matter? I don't know, Im no lawyer but it still smells bad. This whole thing just felt so personal for some reason. Don't really know why, even to this day. Before that day, me and the officer had never had words, never no bad blood, never one ticket so who knows.

Its all over now so we can sit back and say should have done this, could have, should have known. That's all nice now but did me no good then. The state tried to say we never reported anything to HMS but in the end we proved that to be wrong. Had records to back it up. We were the first ones to ever report anything because we heard rumors of people trying to start sh.. so we wanted to head it off and if we did anything wrong then we wanted it taken care of. We thought we covered our basis and then led to this.

Had I never have tossed then phone, I now know that the federal agent would have done the same with me as he did with gray, gave me a written warning and that would have been that but because I tossed then phone, now we have all of this bs. It wasn't the actual act that got me in a bind, it was the after effect. So, let that be a lesson to you as well as myself. I would like to think I learned something from all of this. If I didn't , then it was all a waste all the way around.

So carry on with your rants about how I should have know the season etc... if it makes you feel better. Dint think as a deck hand I had to know one damn thing but guess I was wrong>

Josh

thanks

Kinda wish I hadn't now but, little late. Just glad its all over>