For the sake of these anglers, it’s a good thing they were targeting blackfish instead of triggerfish or skates.

As part of the standard enforcement report given during the Sept. 3 meeting of the New Jersey Marine Fisheries Council meeting, Capt. Mark Chicketano, a Conservation Officer with the state Department of Environmental Protection described the rising number citations being written for the keeping of too many, or undersized, blackfish, also known as tautog.
While the violations were described as “deliberate,” and most likely related to the high value of blackfish on the live, black market in New York City, the violators themselves have gone to creative lengths to hide their illicit activities - including stuffing the fish in their pants!

Undercover operations have been conducted recently in Barnegat Light, Atlantic City and Keansburg, and all yielded results. One of the violators was “ironically” as Capt. Chicketano said, hiding undersized fish under a box of New Jersey fishing regulation information cards. Others quickly rushed fish to their vehicles before casting out again. Still others hired “runners” - people hanging out at fishing haunts in search of money from anglers fishing illegally - to transport fish to vehicles in parking lots.

The violations didn’t stop with blackfish, however. Capt. Chicketano said this year set records for the number of anglers caught with what officers term “display racks,” the carcasses of legal-sized fluke displayed as an excuse to ‘prove’ an undersized fluke was legal. Altogether, officers issued 63 summonses for phony fluke parts this season. Officers also nabbed a group of customers on a Point Pleasant Beach party boat who were smuggling short fluke off the boat and into their vehicle in a nearby parking lot. Additionally, in a highly-publicized collar, C.O.s busted the captain and crew of the Big Mohawk party boat in Belmar after they were seen smashing undersized fluke on the deck to kill them, then fileting the fish and distributing strips to customers as bait. Crewmembers allegedly bragged that this tactic was why they caught more fish than other boats.

Also, a private vessel docked in Brielle was found to illegally have a dead blue marlin on board. The crew said the fish died during de-hooking and they did not want to waste the fish.
On the commercial side, an Atlantic Highlands gillnetter was busted by officers and found to have undersized striped bass, sea bass and fluke, plus clams and even horseshoe crabs on board their vessel. Not surprisingly, the boat did not have a gillnet license. •