Poachers discover stealing steelhead can land you in hot water.

Byline: INSIDE THE OUTDOORS By Mike Stahlberg The Register-Guard

Bad boys! Bad boys! You can run, but you can't hide when the Outdoors Guy checks the police blotter.

Poachers have broken into the fish trap on Whitaker Creek, a tributary to the Siuslaw River, at least a half-dozen times in the past 14 months, stealing winter steelhead needed for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's wild brood stock program.

So Oregon State Police game law enforcement officers have been "staking out" the fish trap periodically during the current steelhead run. That bit of drudgery paid off for Trooper Vonn Schleicher one night last week. Schleicher was watching the trap from a concealed vantage point on Feb. 17 when two men showed up about 10 p.m. and walked out onto the steel fish trap.

"They started angling, attempting to snag fish" that were resting in the creek just above the upstream end of trap, Schleicher said.

All the men got for their attempted snagging, however, was some broken fishing line.

"Then they broke into the fish trap and, using a net, hauled out three steelhead," the trooper said. "As they were retreating from the scene, I took them into custody."

Lodged into the Lane County Jail were Joseph Aaron Dotts, 34, and Gerald Wilson Pitt, 33, both of Eugene. In addition to the fish, which were donated to the Eugene Mission, Schleicher also seized fishing poles, a fish net, two loaded rifles and had the men's vehicle impounded.

Dotts was charged with trespass on a fish trap, angling in a closed area and three counts of taking a fish by illegal means. Wilson was charged with five counts of aiding in a wildlife crime. Each alleged violation is a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

"The scary thing is they didn't cause any physical damage to the trap," Schleicher said. "We never would have known they were there."

Big game poachers tend to attract more attention than those who take fish illegally, but fishery violations do add up.

In 2003, for example, a special enforcement effort designed to protect endangered salmon and steelhead in the North Fork Santiam and Little North Fork Santiam rivers produced 83 arrests and 56 warnings, according to a State Police report.

Meanwhile, federal officers have also been busy. The Bureau of Land Management announced this week that it had successfully prosecuted a Bend man who was illegally guiding commercial float trips on the John Day River.

Carl J. Rapp, 45, entered a guilty plea to charge of conducting a commercial operation on public lands without a permit.

As part of a plea bargain, Rapp agreed to plead guilty and accept a sentence of a $500 fine, a suspended seven-day jail sentence and three years of unsupervised probation by a U.S. magistrate.

In return for the guilty plea, the government agreed not to seek indictment for any related felonies, including willfully making a false statement and unlawful taking of wildlife under the Lacey Act.

Our final police blotter item involves a Wisconsin man who broke no law other than the statute of common sense.

According to the Green Bay Press-Gazette, 57-year-old John Gilmet of Howard cooked up trouble when, upon returning from vacation, he forgot to retrieve a .38-caliber handgun and two .22-caliber handguns from what he thought was a safe hiding spot.

Gilmet's wife turned on the oven to preheat it in preparation for baking the family dinner, and the ammunition her husband had placed in the oven along with the handguns began "cooking off."

All the discharged rounds were in boxes and not in the weapons' firing chambers. Thus, the projectiles did not have the velocity of a bullet fired from a gun, and the bullets were contained with the oven. Police said there were no injuries and no apparent damage beyond the fried firearms and some dents in the oven's interior walls.

Mike Stahlberg can be reached at [e-mail].