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Oct 27, 2005 2:25 pm US/Eastern
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Tackle Box Item Thefts Puzzle Police
Ocean City. MD (AP) ―
An uptick in thefts of small bait fish has sparked an investigation by the state Department of Natural
Resources Police.
Tackle shop owner Douglas Maguire said someone stole more than $2,000 of the fish and the pens they're stored in, costing him about $6,000. The fish sell for about $2.
"It's like a buried treasure -- you have to hide them when you have spot," said Maguire, owner of Skip's Bait and Tackle Shop, who says he's been.
Cpl. Ken Turner of Natural Resources said thefts like those are becoming more common.
"There just seems to be a rash of complaints coming up here in the last couple weeks to a month," he told The (Salisbury) Daily Times. "We're doing a lot of legwork here."
Officials say spot -- popular prey of rockfish -- is the most frequent target for thieves because it is often kept outdoors in
submerged large pens, rather than inside.
Store owners said thieves steal spot because they're too lazy to catch their own. But Sue Foster, owner of Oyster Bay Tackle Shop on Coastal Highway, said kids last year stole her spot from the back of the store, brought them back around to the front, and resold them to her.
"After the third time, I got suspicious," she said. "So I went out back and saw the wet spot where they had just been."
Turner didn't say if the department is considering the crimes the work of a single thief, or a string of unrelated incidents.
(© 2005 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)