Lookouts Net 4 Lobster Poaching Suspects

A nighttime stakeout by lobster fishermen from the bluffs overlooking the harbor led to the arrests of four people suspected of lobster poaching, authorities said Monday.

Dan Sforza, a warden with the State Fish and Game Department, said that members of the Dana Cove Commercial Fishermen’s Assn. had complained for months that their lobster traps outside the breakwater had been poached.

“Their complaints have been heard often,” Sforza said, “but, of course, we can’t mind their traps around the clock, so the fishermen are beginning to take it upon themselves to protect traps from robbers.”

Association members staked out the harbor from the bluffs on Feb. 20, watching as boats left the harbor.

When association observers noticed an 18-foot skiff switch off its running lights at 2 a.m., in the area of their traps, they notified the Orange County Sheriff’s Harbor Patrol.

However, operators of the skiff refused to allow the deputies to inspect the boat without a search warrant. Sforza was called, and invoked a Fish and Game Code section that allows wardens to inspect boats under certain circumstances without a warrant.

Sforza said he found 53 lobsters, 44 of them undersized, on board, along with a crude pulley device.

“There was no other lobster fishing gear on board,” he said, “only a fishing pole with which one might snag a lobster,” which would also be illegal. “But there were no snag marks on any of the lobsters.”

The night’s big winners were the seized lobsters, which were freed.

“There’s no way of telling which (traps) they came from,” Sforza said.

The four suspects, who face a variety of misdemeanor counts, were identified as: Cao Van Le, 19, Mot Van Le, 70, and Be Thi Le, 69, all of Westminster; and Van Le Thanh, 22, of Garden Grove. It is unknown if the four are related.