Whale breaks up illegal fishing trip

Posted by crimeblog

Posted: June 17, 2008 - 4:29 pm

A whale reportedly struck a small boatload of Canadian fishermen who had illegally taken salmon and halibut near the Southeast community of Hoonah, according to Alaska Wildlife Troopers.

Troopers escorted the 24-foot fiberglass Get Real into Hoonah for repairs after the impact at about 11:30 a.m. Monday that stopped its motor and caused a steady stream of water to spew into the boat.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the Get Real was travelling at about 30 knots at the time of impact. The three people aboard did not report any injuries.

After arriving on the scene, troopers on the P/V Gow-tukan gave the fishermen hand pumps and took two of their coolers onto the Gow-tukan to help steady the foundering boat.

In Hoonah, troopers saw the party had taken more than the allowed limit of king salmon and had a large number of chunked up halibut pieces in their coolers.

Two of the fishermen, Ron Chambers, 55, of Yukon Territory, and Ron Thiessen, 61, of Manitoba, were cited for exceeding the king salmon limit, failing to log the fish and mutilating the halibut, troopers said.

Neither troopers nor the Coast Guard were able to locate any injured whales in the area.

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