If you like fish and wildlife content, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future videos. On September 9th, 2024, an officer with Florida Fish and Wildlife is patrolling Western [ __ ] Ecological Reserve in an unmarked vessel and in plain clothing. This ecological reserve is a marine sanctuary that is closed to all possession and harvesting of marine life. While in the reserve, he observed individuals harvesting marine life and made contact to conduct a fisheries inspection. What are you doing? All right, investigate away Florida Fish and Wildlife going to come alongside do a boating safety and marine fisheries inspection. You shoot anything? Have any luck? Yeah, mangrove and a grunt. And then we got a limit of lobster. All right. You want a powerful? All right. Yeah, just round. That's fine. Just uh hang tight. I got lines. I'm assuming you're the captain. Yeah, she's for today, right? She is. She's technically a captain. She's the boss. Driving a boat today, though. Where y'all from? Tampa. Tampa. Okay. Watch your hands. There you go. You got a cleat midship. No, I don't. I got one right there. I can put it right here though. This will hold us together. Just do this. Come on. I'll get a stern one. I'll get this one secured. I'm going to turn my trolling motor off. It probably won't work. All right. Cap, photo ID, vessel registration, and obviously got one gentleman that just came out of the water. Let's see. Make this nice and tight. Did you all go fishing as well? All right. Yeah. All right. Are we counting fish for a bag limit? Right. You guys got 24 lobsters? Yes, sir. All right. Uh Gary. Gary. Gary's my dad. That's He needs your ID. Oh, well, he just said the gentleman that was in the water. Yeah, that too. That's you. Yeah. Let your hair grow out, man. You see mine? All right. All right. Um Tyler, got your fishing license? Yeah. All right. You got your fishing license? Yes, sir. All right. Yeah, we're probably going to need all of them. Yep. I got the lifetime just recently, so I'll be happy to show you. Okay. Got a few more days on. Thank you. All right. Let's see some fish. Let's see them. You want to see any safety gear? Well, the way I work is that says, you see that? It says fish and wildlife and all that stuff. It doesn't say life jacket police. So, I do care about your life jackets and we are going to get to that. Well, like I said, if you limit it out on lobster and you got a mangrove snapper and you've got fish and you've got guns and you've got crusty long blades and you got all this stuff, you think the first thing I'm going to ask for is a life jacket? I don't know. I don't get pulled over. I'll get that for you though. I promise I will. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Um, I recently changed my last name. I'm married to him. That's why this still says my maiden name. Erica, there you go. Thank you. Appreciate it. That's kind of what I was. Still working on the last one. Yeah. Trying to redownload the app. Sweet. Gotcha. All right. So, let's go see those fish. There's only two in there. That drone I showed you and a mango. All right. Yep. Bring them on out. So, I guess what I'll do is is cut to the chase. You guys are from Tampa, you said? Yeah. Well, guess what? What? You're inside of Western Sambo's ecological reserve. You've ever heard of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary? Yes. All right. Well, Florida Keys Nassarine Sanctuary goes from Keargo to the Dry Tortugas and everywhere in between. And within that area, they have specially protected areas and ecological reserves, right? So, you are smack dab in the middle of Western Sambo's ecological reserve. There is no fishing, no taking, no hunting, no taking of lobsters or anything. Wait, really? I thought I read all the I went on FWC's site and looked at all the ecological How far does it go that way? So, what we're going to do is usually I I I cut to the chase a little later. Yeah. Um but I'm going to tell you that right now cuz obviously I'm going to have to take everything. We're going to go through education. I'm going to answer every one of your questions. I promise. All right. But I'm going to take care of business at hand. All right. So, you got that lane snapper. There you go. And that's actually just a grunt. All right, that's good. And um who uh who shot these? You did. Okay, got it. All right. I did. I thought I did. I missed. I thought there was yellowies that marked it. He's going to answer all our questions. Wow. If this radio wants to work here, like usually it's red. I'm sure he'll answer questions. Is it? Oh, yeah. You want to drain your live well? How do you want to get those lobsters out of there? However you want me to. Whatever's easiest for you. I mean, if you want to grab them, huh? No. I got to document them with photographs and whatnot. Oh boy. Um, you want to grab me a net out of there? Is it the distance from I was going to say this reserve is massive. So are we allowed to lobster like out back? I'm saying 39. Yeah. You're in a box. Makes a box. Big box. Yeah. Are And you're not allowed to lobster anywhere in that box? That's a reserve. Like a sanctuary. Okay. Yep. I was going to say you're right. There are yellow buoys. Yeah. And um there's one over there. There's some over there. And you're about 3 to four miles inside of it. Um I've been doing this for about 15 years. Back in the day, we had paper charts. Um we've never been anywhere but marathon. This is our first time lobster turning down in Key West. All right. So I try and keep up with the times. So, everybody has that thing on their phone called Fish Rules. Have you heard of that app? Uh, I have that FWC app. All right. Fish Rules is um a really cool app where it tells you the size, the season, the bag limit, you know, all that good stuff. Edibility, you know, um for anybody and everybody. It's uh if you want to go on your app store, you can. It's called fish rules. You don't have to, but um if you do have your location services on, right, it'll say, "Hey, lobster season is open. Minimum daily bag, six per person per harvester." But in big red bold letters, it says, "Warning, you're in a closed area. There is no fishing or harvesting of any. All right, let's see what else you got. See? All right, here's your net. Let's open up some other compartments. Batteries in that one. Trash in this one. batteries. Two more batteries. I can't get it on my gloves. Thank you. We've already been through that cooler. Just had the grunt in the mangrove. All right. And we'll go up there. We just drink some. All right. We'll take a look at that. Thank you, ma'am. Um, and in the underneath the seat, pulls up. Just got to be thorough. Uh, any safety equipment in there or whatnot? No, that's okay. All right. And then we'll just kind of keep our making our way through the bow. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Four life jackets back. Uh just need four life jackets. Uh bell whistler horn. Type four throwable. Like a life ring underneath those lines. There's a horn right here. Thank you, man. You got those flares. Sweet. Horns. Good flares. Those look kind of new. [Music] Where are you? Yeah, man. You called it. 27th May. I thought I did all my research before I came down here. I just missed one really crucial piece. One really big crucial piece. Um, type four throwable. Oh, thank you. All right. Are we still working on a fishing license for Yeah. Don't need to measure these. Oh, we thought we were having a great day. Well, that's kind of what I wanted to bring up. And I'm not trying to be sarcastic. I'm not trying to be adversarial, but usually that's a sign is if we're the beginning of lobster season and you look around and you don't see one commercial trap. Not one anywhere till the eye can see on the horizon. Yeah. Not one commercial trap, but when you dive down, it's loaded. That's a hint. Anybody [Music] uh download that app yet? I was going to say, trust me, it is on that chart plotter. Is that a Garmin? Yeah, it's it's on there. You got either zoom in, zoom out. Huh? It says fishing prohibited. It makes like uh a rectangle. 23. Yep, that's 25. So, check it out. This is what we're going to do. Obviously, these are all uh criminal violations. Um, what I'm going to do is issue some notice to appear citations, okay, to the gentlemen that were in the water and the captain. Okay? I'm going to give you warnings to the women, okay? Um, I'm not going to seize your spear gun, okay? not going to speak uh um seize any of your gear, the press sees and all that good stuff, but normally that's what we do. All right, I appreciate that. But um you get to come back to Key West instead of for vacationing. It's going to be a court date. Okay, so um let me do my best with the computer answering any questions at the same time. I'll be as quick as possible. Try and keep these on Anybody been able to manipulate that GPS yet? Yeah. So, the Florida Keys Nash Marine Sanctuary and just about any other place in the ocean always has numerous uh areas that have some kind of regulatory system on it, right? So, there's an area to be avoided by tanker ships, like uh 150 meter cargo container ships. They're obviously not allowed around the reef. I don't know if that's maybe what you're looking at on the on the GPS, maybe. But it says fishing prohibited. Mine doesn't do that, but [Music] Let me ask you a question. Do you have it on settings on most detail? Um, appearance. Chart appearance. There you go. Yep. And it should say detail most detail. Detail most. Okay. So, it it's on there. Zoom in, zoom out. You'll see a dotted line that goes from the shoreline all the way to the reef, six miles, and then another dotted line to the west of us that goes from the reef line to the shoreline. Is it a wiggly red line? Nope. Straight. Is there a map online I can look up that'll show me? We're in the year 2024. It's on there. It's everywhere. It's on paper charts. It's on GPS's, Garmin, Ferno, Rayarine, every Okay. It's on. When I read about the sanctuary before we came down, I thought it said there would be the yellow buoys. It said there are. It's I mean, like I said, you got to be cognizant of of what side of the line of the yellow buoys there are. Okay. And I thought I was looking for like the ones at like Lu Key that are like far in an area or something. I didn't realize that's because it's so small. This place is massive. Yep. As far as lobstering out back, is that like all the way kind of past like Snip? Yeah, that's open. Like I said, the reserve as long as you're on the other side of the yellow buoys, which is about a mile and a half that way. And as long as you're on the other side of the buoys that way, two and a half miles, you're outside the box. Oh, yeah. We did start over there. So, that's technically where we got most of our limit, but like I said, I don't think you're going to care too much about that, unfortunately. Correct. How we doing on that fourth and final? I got it. You got it. Sweet. All right. Do you have your ID with you, too? I have a picture of it. Okay, that'll work. Done. Nicole, thank you. Nicole, what kind of boat is this? Uh, sea chaser. Sea chaser. They can get into some skinny water. Looks like a flat boat. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Obviously, we're drifting into the shallows. You want to put the power? Um, you got You put yours down, I'll put mine down. That'll work. Got to love those things, huh? It's a game changer. Yeah, man. the over the limit. Just a warning, not another chart. Right. Thank you. Just writing you the one chart. At least you're trying. I'm trying. Right. Kind of a You're a bit fooar out here, but I'm not writing you everything I see. All right. But I do have to write it. Kind of egregious. You have to. Are you going to let the lobster go, though? Yeah, I have to. I just want them to go back before they die. Oh, no. They're They're very hardy. Yeah, I know. Do you know how they get sent to China? No, I don't. In like a um like a mesh of like uh like wet netting really. They go on an airplane, not in a live well. Yeah. They just got to stay wet then. I mean, and that's that's just to kind of help them when they secrete stuff. But um yeah. All right. That is defendant copy. I've got both you. So Tyler, just hold on to that. What that has basically is is all of your information at the top. The vessel information, the state statute that says you can't do what you did. And it's got that court date at the very bottom that says I promise to appear. You don't have to sign that one because that's just your copy. This one you are going to have to. And I'm gonna print out another one. So Tyler, this is the same thing that you have in your hand. Exact same thing. What I want you to do is is sign where it says signature of defendant. You're not admitting guilt. You're promising to appear. All right. That's all you're doing. This you guys' first um ever resource citation in Monroe County. Yeah. First one anywhere. All right. Well, that's a good thing for you because if everybody, you know, wonders what happens with these things, I can't obviously give legal advice. I ain't no lawyer. But if this is your first criminal offense, you've got no DUIs, no batteries, no eggs, no all that other good stuff, right? And this is truly your first, a lot of times what these things do is get um pled down to fines. Um and uh it all goes away. All right. All right. That's how it works. But you got to go through the system though. A lot of times back in the day, people would say, "Will you just give me just a ticket and just let me pay it?" And then what they were doing is is they were actually pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. So we have a bunch of people have misdemeanors on their records for a fish for a lobster, right? And that's why we kind of have to do it this way. It is a misdemeanor charge. Whatever. Exactly. Call me. And same thing for you. It's October 2nd. Judge Wilson. That's Garrett. Go ahead and sign that. I'm gonna get your copy here next. All right. So, while that's printing off, are they answering all your questions? Did you find it on the GPS? Did you find the box? You want me to go over there? Yeah. I would love for you to come and show me. Yep. All right. Yeah. There you go. So, you've got this blue line. Oh, there's your blue line right here. All the way out. It goes all the way out to the reef. Wow. Maybe too much, but yeah. Box. You're in the box. So, here is good. And down here is good. Anywhere to the east, I'm sorry, to the west of this line. Yes. Right. And to the east of this line. Now, because I absolutely do not want this to happen again. The only ones that other than this one that you have to worry about in the uh the lower keys is Rock Key, Sand Key, and Eastern Dry Rocks. And those are the ones that are on the reef line. I looked at the what is it? Great heron or something. That's a national wildlife refuge. So back there we can take offer. Yeah. As long as there's no ecological reserve protected area, specially protected area, L key. But yeah, back there that's that's where it's been hit hard by people. Everybody. So, those um fish are going to be given to the uh sharks and the lobsters. Return to the resource. Any other questions for me? You guys got your driver's license. You guys got your registration. Go catch some more. Day is not over. I've let you keep your gear. Thank you. All right. I hope we don't see you again. Sorry to have ruined your day, but please know where this area is. Do you guys hunt? Yeah. Yeah. You guys got wildlife management areas and private lands and whatnot. Yep. And when you hear about a tourist or some out oftowner coming in, pisses you off, right? Yeah. You're like, "Who's coming into my backyard shooting a deer out of season?" Yeah. Same thing. Well, I apologize for that. All right, guys. Let me undo you here. All right, guys. See, in the end, Tyler and Garrett were both charged with possessing or harvesting fish or other living organisms from an ecological reserve. Both women on board were issued warnings for the same violation. Warnings were also given for being over the limit of spiny lobster, improper display of vessel registration, and improper display of a dive flag. Tyler pled no contest. The court withheld adjudication, and he was ordered to pay a total of $313 in cost and fines. Garrett, the operator of the vessel, also pled no contest. His adjudication was withheld and he was placed on 6 months of probation with the possibility of early termination once all of the conditions were met. The conditions included completing a fishing regulations course, no fishing or diving in Monroe County while on probation, and paying a total of $418 in cost and fines. 3 months later, his probation was terminated. If you like this video and want to see more like it, subscribe to Arrest Cam. As always, thanks for watching.