I'll hazard a guess that most of the folks on the water do the right thing at the right time. I have a little heart burn over "immediately" marking a crab with all the things going on when pulling/re-baiting/setting pots but we get it done. I think there is room for flexibility and common sense in enforcement.

I'm trying to dig up our issues with the previous report (2007, I think) from LE on compliance. There was considerable discussion with staff about their data collection and interpretation. The numbers were not used appropriately. I think they said there was a 60% violation rate based on the contacts made. They totaled all violations contacted and added in all warnings to come up with their numbers. What they couldn't tell us was the actual number of persons who rec'd a citation and how many charges/warnings those people got and they couldn't break out the warnings. It really skews the numbers when you don't have documentation and a broad brush is used to paint a whole group.