August 2005, we were boarded twice in two days by the BDF. They tore the boat apart on the first day, even opening unopened 5gal buckets of oil, looking for lobster, fish, etc. They then tried to claim dolphin fillets were snapper and grouper and eyeballed the fillets, claiming they weighed 180lbs (we had 6 people on board, 20lbs of bottom fish per person allowed) and for the big boat to pick us up. I produced a scale and we weighed the fillets and they were a whopping 40lbs.
Sorry boy, no boat for you today. We went on to lobster dive that day. Ironically, they were stopping people on their way to Mangrove Cay (N. of Grand Bahama) instead of coming back.
The next day we were deep dropping off of Memory when the same group of guys pulled up very quickly and grinning. They weighed our fish and we were a pound under the limit. I would describe them as very annoyed they didn't catch us doing anything wrong after trying to get us the day before through trickery (I would call saying 40lbs of fish is 180lbs trickery).
I do not have a high opinion of the new BDF.
I'm not old enough to remember the really old days but I've been going to the Bahamas long enough to remember people asking what electric reels are and how we caught muttons with yellow eyes. Now I'm not going to be able to catch anything with my electrics?