Fishermen Claim Marine Patrol Guilty of Unfair Enforcement Practices

The relationship between commercial fishermen and the North Carolina Marine Patrol (NCMP) has always been tumultuous at best. 

The NCMPs currently monitor 2.5 million acres of water and over 4,000 miles of coastline, under the direction of the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF). 

As the body of environmental regulations affecting North Carolina's aquatic resources continue to grow, some commercial fishermen contend that DMF's law enforcement arm is in drastic need of an overhaul. 

The NCMP was created in 1822 by the NC General Assembly to enforce gear restrictions on oyster harvesting. Since its inception the NCMPs' role expanded to include the harvest of finfish and shellfish, and later expanded to encompass virtually all aspects of both commercial and recreational fishing. Nearly 189 years old, the patrol is now responsible for policing a staggering number of fishermen —current statistics suggest that 8,000 commercial fishermen and 1.5 million recreational anglers are on North Carolina's waters each year. 

Tony Frost of Homer Smith Seafood is among the ranks of fishermen questioning the structure of the NCMP. Frost's vessel, Frieda Marie ran afoul of the Marine Patrol July 4, 2000 for shrimping in restricted waters. Frost took his case to court and proved that his boat was shrimping in a lawful area but it was a hollow victory. 

"I took (the NCMPs) to court and proved that they were wrong. My captain and crew lost a week of wages. We lost a week on the water," Frost says. "I don't feel that I was fairly compensated for the shrimp that I lost and I have no further recourse. DMF law enforcement infringed on my rights and they won't see any repercussions." 

More recently Robert Lee Simmons fell into a similar situation. His boat, The Three Lindas, was cited for shrimping in closed waters near Brunswick County. While Frost's boat had been spotted from another vessel on the water, Simmons' citation was based on observations by an NCMP aircraft. 

"We could hear the fellow in the airplane over the radio saying, 'Somebody go out there and get the name of that boat, I can't read the name,'" Simmons says. "So he's up there flying 100 miles an hour, lining up three buoys to determine that my boat is in the wrong but he can't read the name? She's a 45-foot boat with 13-inch letters and he says 'It's too small, I can't read the name.'I've got GPS on all my boats, I know where the plotter says The Three Lindas was. The thing that really bothers me is that they gave the ticket to my man and I can't find out anything about any of my gear or even what price they got for my shrimp. They've already put my captain and crew out of work and it'll take me a lot more time off work to straightened this mess out." 

"Now I appreciate what the DMF does," Simmons continues. "They marked off that area after the hurricanes to protect them little bitty shrimp, and I'm glad they did but they've got to do a better job in their enforcement." 

The Simmons case is pending and NCMP director Monty Willis says he will be willing to comment on the case as soon as he can collect all the information. Willis was able to comment on the Frost case, saying that Frost won his court battle due to a technicality. Willis says that in the Frost case there was a deviation between the coordinates laid out in the DMF proclamation and a corresponding map that declared the area off limits to fishing.

"Sure, Tony won the case on a technicality -  [NCMP's] incompetence," remarks Frost's attorney, John Nobles. That's what you're dealing with. It's just amazing that an organization would be like that. Hell, if I was them I'd just try to get away from it. I'd act like I didn't even do it."

 "If your going to draft a law that says somebody can't do something you can be really exact about it. For example, you can't go over 55 on such and such a road. Then you don't run out there and put up a 65-mile-per-hour sign then say, 'Oh, damn! Nah, we'll charge you with 55 because that's what the law says. We just made a mistake here and put the wrong sign up.' That's obvious; we obviously recognize that that's wrong. Even if the law says 55 on that road if the state puts a sign on that road that says 65 or even doesn't mark it accordingly, then they can't enforce that law. 

"Marine Fisheries takes exactly the opposite approach. They decide something isn't correct or that they want to make a rule…. once they get the rule they just assume that's all they need to do. They can step on people's rights, they can confuse them, they can even look like idiots and don't even have to be ashamed. They go out there and write coordinates down in the wrong place—and how hard is it to pick up a chart and draft the coordinates, I can do it and I promise you in five minutes I can teach you how to do it."