Four guides to fishing in the Petersburg lodge have been charged to authorities from the State of Alaska with over 50 violations. Four men worked as guides for Rocky Point Resort in 2019 and 2020.
The charges are all violations of the law involving illegal fishing for Halibut. Halibut is strictly monitored with a limited amount of quotas for fishermen who are commercial or sports and harvests must be recorded.
Federal and state police agents were involved with the probes and undercover officers were posing as fishing customers. The officers claim they witnessed 62-year old Gregory Wasik and 59-year-old Kristopher Thomas violate several laws -having several customers at once, taking too many halibut, utilizing excessive fishing lines, releasing smaller halibut in order to keep bigger ones. They also threw away Halibut that was caught or gaffed in order to bring the fish to board. The state claims that the guides failed to properly document the halibut the clients had caught.
Wasik is charged with 17 counts of violating the law during June 2019.Thomas is charged with 25 counts of violations during June and in August of 2020.
The state is charging 43-year old Charles King, known as “Nik,” with 10 charges for not reporting halibut that was caught by his customers in the spring of 2020. John Robert Snyder is being accused of two similar charges for violations that occurred in August 2020. Snyder’s age was not mentioned in the court papers.
The halibut that were caught were known by the name of guide anglers. This is a halibut quota that was sold through commercial fishing companies to guided sport fishermen under an federal catch-sharing scheme.
Although federal authorities were in charge, there aren’t federal charges as of yet. NOAA spokesperson for fisheries Dominic Andrews said in an email that they were currently conducting an investigation and are unable to comment.
Rocky Point Resort has been run by the Petersburg family from 1984. It provides guided and unguided fishing. The person who called the resort on Monday said that she was unaware of the charges, and that there was no one else to discuss the matter.
The arraignment of all four guides has been scheduled for May 31 at 10:00 a.m. in the Petersburg Courthouse.
The prosecuting attorney of the state will be Ronald Dupuis with the Office of Special Prosecutions in Anchorage. He was not available to comment.
