During Florida's mini lobster season, wildlife officers approach a dive boat with a diver down flag display. As they approach, they see two scuba divers with lobster bags getting on the boat. Go. Do not drop anything. How you guys doing? Fishing wild. Good. Let me give you a line. Go ahead and pop that cleat for me, Cap. Just clear that out so you can think. An officer boards the vessel and begins measuring the lobster. Uh, who's in charge today? Yeah. Yeah. Stand by. How was it? Current's ripping, huh? I didn't wear a pair of boots. Rock climbing the floor every time. Hey, you got got your Nikes on. It looks like pull on the rock craw. For sure. one. How many do you How many do you have? You know, it was so hard trying to hold down one hand. I I got you. I couldn't even get back to the boat. Hit the BC and was like, "Come pick me up, guys." Right. You know, you can only have six in your bag. Yes. Yeah. You can Miami, I'm guessing. Nope. You can't harvest for other folks. You can only harvest your six. Been like that forever. I've been doing this for 17 years. Okay. Who's who's the uh who's got the rich guys from Miami? There's a lot of shorts in there, too. Did you measure them? I said I had no chance to put anything. Well, you have a a measuring gauge on there. You got to have that on you and you got to measure them in the water prior to putting them in your bath. You have no idea. That's unfortunately that's not a good excuse, sir. This is lobster mini season. Going a long time, man. And I've never heard anything say that. My friend on the boat. Uh it's been in this situation for you. I grew up down here. I've been doing this for 30 plus years. Both off my off time and as a cop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The own the registered owner of the boat's not here. That's fine. No, that's fine. No problem. Do you have your ID? Gentleman in the red shirt. Not car. You have your ID, sir? Thanks. The officers are finding that many lobsters on board are too small to keep. All those are short. Those are all short and those are good. How many total? Do you have a fishing license, Mr. Douglas? Fishing license? Fishing license, too? Yes. Get 18 total and uh 14 or short. Are there any more lobster on board? [Music] No, you're you're good. I found it on the computer. I'm just going to preface this with with you're very lucky you're not going to jail today. I'll explain in a second. I need an offense number reference. 64 Lima over bag. Um, yeah, you've got 14 under size, which is way over your bag limit, and 18 total, which is three times your bag limit. Like I said, you should be going to jail. It's a misdemeanor. There's going to be a lot of violations today. We're not going to do that. Okay. We're going to we're going to write you a ticket. You're going to go to court later. Okay. But you are getting charged with that. But we can only have six in the back. Yes. If you have two divers underwater, each diver can have six. Yes. If you have three or four divers in the water, each diver can have six. It Yeah. It can't be one bag. It can't be one back. Well, that's what I'm saying. If you like say you I had just came out of the water, but we didn't see you in the water. When he came home, he had the bag in his possession. It's all about He was the We were in the water and then he got caught in the I'm just saying, sir, he got caught in the water. The waiter's still over. You could only have 12. You had 18. Yes. So, even if that was the case, you didn't in the water. You have to have one more person. What What I'm telling you is No, no, no, ma'am. So, sorry. He was he was in the water with the I was in the water and he was in the water and then he got caught in the current cuz the current was ripping. So like we had to drop everything and we had to haul up and cuts left. What what I'm saying is No, no, I got you. We can we can charge all three of you then because you've got 14 undersized. So it's in possession. So we saw him come out of the water with the bag. Go into the bag. You have to measure this. That's the key. That's what as soon as they go into the bag, we're saying I measured this is my lobster and it's good size. Okay. Cuz even if we would have stopped with all enough people in the water out there, it's still on. How much do you waste? As soon as they go in your bag, you're saying it was my fault. The barrel was gripping. I had no time to do it. Only on one hand. All right, Douglas. The the charges are all on here. Okay. It's 14 charges of under size, one charge of being over the bag limit of lobster, one for not measuring in the water, and one for not having a measuring device. Okay. You got to have it in the water. I don't know. I just There's no way there's no way to poop, you know. I understand. It sucks, but it depends. Yeah, you got to you got to measure them in the water, though. You know what I'm saying? Now, this is going to include a a court appearance. You're going to have to go to court. It's actually a misdemeanor. Um, this is you're getting what's called a notice to appear. Okay? And basically, because of the whole COVID thing and all that, you're going to have to call and they're going to notice you on when you're going to appear in court. Okay? Normally, we'll give out a court date, but because they don't have that, the clerk's office is going to notice. Is it one decimal or is that 14 different? It's 17 total charges. Each lobster that's undersized is one count. But if you have 14, it's 14 counts. That I I that's not my doing. That's the state of Florida. What? Unfortunately, the excuse of not knowing or not being aware during mini season doesn't fly for anybody, any officer, because it's a highly anticipated event. So, it's your onus as the harvester to know the rules and know the laws. And there's plenty of information out there. I do my current, as you can tell, it's and you can explain that in court, you know. I mean, you can explain that in court. I I just document what I see and let them them sort everything out. It's going to say on there that I didn't I didn't switch it out. It says for the court date. Disregard that. Okay. I'm going to cross it out. Like I said, you're going to have to call Monroe County. Yes. Because the violation occurred in Monroe County. Thanks. Good.