The Maryland Natural Resources Police (MDNRP) and federal law enforcement have worked together to indict four Talbot County watermen with striped bass poaching, a MDNRP spokesperson has announced. In February of 2011, NRP officers discovered illegal nets off Kent Island, leading to a four year-long investigation to finally identify Michael D. Hayden, Jr., William J. Lednum, Kent Sadler, and Daniel Murphy, local watermen who were conspiring to and attempting to overharvest striped bass, falsify records submitted to the MDNRP, and finally sell their catch to wholesalers. The men were indicted on 26 counts. The poaching ring spanned four years and is said to have been worth nearly half a million dollars. "Egregious fishing violations are major challenges for fisheries management," said Bill Goldsborough, chairman of the Sport Fisheries Advisory Commission. "Effective enforcement like this is essential to healthy fisheries." The state's new Maritime Law Enforcement Information Network (MLEIN), a network of radars and cameras monitoring the Bay, assisted in the investigation. For more information on MLEIN, click here. To read more about the indictment, click here. And are you interested in what sort of charges and fines the four watermen will face? Curious to know what you could be charged with for overharvesting, fishing without a license, or operating under the influence? Pick up a copy of the January issue of PropTalk, on newsstands December 15, to read our "By the Numbers" article.