Thank you all for your kind words/thoughts. I'm going to try to get the canoe finished and make an early transition to lake fishing while I wait for my gear's return.
Stolen Gear Alert
- Thread starter Jake Watrous
- Start date
Thank you.
Might do that. Hopefully I have them back by then.
Is this the guy that stole a fly rod and went to the sol duc only to catch a 25 pounder, bonk it, and get arrested while grilling himself and the fish in a burned out motorhome outside of forks? Cause that one sounds like a doozy. Apparently the guy can fish.
Bambooflyguy
Life of the Party
Glad they caught the bum.....you almost got your stuff back Jake. Soon we hope!
No I have long advocated, put them in a set of waders, no belt, make them swim across any of our major rivers in winter, if they make it to the other side and survive they are free to go.
As Yeates put it, "think where a man's glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends."
Jake, if the local gendarmes operate basically operate the same way we did in Seattle, then one of their detectives should have been assigned the case. If you have your case number available, get a hold of the detective. He/she will be the one to determine whether or not it can be released back to you. Since you don’t know if the detective has any type of case going, including a suspect identified, that will factor into if and when you get this property returned. An issue that may arise has already been mentioned in that there are no identifying PIN’s that proves the items are yours. Of course the flipside is that it’s highly unlikely that there are any like items in their property room at this time. Good luck and don’t get too discouraged if that police department can’t, or won’t release the items to you. Rules and regulations supersede common sense all the time. Frustrating and ridiculous but that’s just the way it is. Good luck.
Hi Sarge,
Thanks for the information and explanation of process.
Fortunately I was able to find serial numbers in a few grip and grin photos, and the rash on the reels seems to match the rash on the reels in custody.
It’s a story for later, but the word around the water cooler is that meth man didn’t believe in his 5th amendment rights and admitted to a bunch of things he did as an alibi that he didn’t do something else.
Edit: Sorry, this came out far longer than I’d intended.
tl;dr: Recently I learned that my rods and reels are sitting in a place near Olympia. No one knows why they're there instead of where they're supposed to be, but apparentl I'd "be surprised as the places things end up, or how often they simply go missing." Anyway, the acronym that has them is currently willing to have come me go pick my things up. I have not yet had the time to go get them, but I'm looking to do so soon.
Disclaimer: I’m changing some names and also may unintentionally muff an explanation or accidentally mischaracterize how some of the things were handled by various agencies. A lot of my information is informal/pieced together, and some is from “off-the-record” conversations I “didn’t have” with various people at different levels. If what I post here contradicts something I told you in-person before, at the time I said whatever, that is the “truth” as I knew it to be. There’s been a lot of reading between the lines, hints, and things have never been/will never be fully explained or understood by or known to me—I’m just the victim of the theft.
I promised the story of what happened, so here’s what happened(?), and I’ll add some hard-won advice.
Last March I had spent the day fishing the SD and stopped off with some friends at a restaurant in Port Angeles. After dinner and drinks, I came out to find my car's back passenger side window broken out and some jackass had broken in and helped themselves to my rods (fortunately I'd only brought two), a backpack full of dirty clothes, a flask, a travel humidor of cigars, a pair of my friend’s (5'2", 120lbs) pants, and my (6'7" 290lbs) wading jacket and the < $1 change in my cup holder.
I called the police, who eventually came out, took down my information, and told me to call my insurance while they looked for an orangutan with larceny in its heart.
I called my insurance, let's call them Totally Not Horace Mann, who asked me for the serial numbers of my rods and reels and to submit to them along with the proof that I'd purchased all of those things. I had none of those things anywhere (my bad), so they helpfully advised me that I was screwed. They were also hesitant about covering the damage to my car as they figured I might've thrown a broken spark plug through my own window while I was eating dinner in order to steal my own shit as a way to commit insurance fraud. But since I had fooled the police into writing a report, eventually they coughed up the money to pay for that. If you saw a silver Pathfinder driving around the Seattle area in April with a cardboard window reading "Not Horace Mann F*cking Sucks", that was probably me.
I put out the all-call to folks here and other places, and hoped my stuff would be found--consigning myself to a disappointing end to a so-so steelhead season.
Combing through old photos I was able to recover the serial numbers for the rods, but as I wasn't the purchasing owner it was no help. Totally Not Horace Mann didn't cover the used rods, reels lines, tips, etc because I had no proof I'd ever owned them. They also didn't want to replace my dirty laundry, but did offer to replace my jacket if I could prove I'd had it in the car. I crossed my fingers that the criminal/orangutan would eventually be caught with all my stuff as that seemed the only way.
I borrowed gear from folks, traded some rods I wasn't using for quasi-replacements, inherited some rods from retiring fisherfolk, and hoped for the best. I discovered I loved the Sage X 8130 when it went on sale, but I missed my old rods with their rash, nicks, hand-grooves cork, and mojo.
Fortunately, police had video of Meth Man in action thanks to video cameras being fairly ubiquitous. Eventually this was enough to convince Totally Not Horace Mann that I hadn’t broken my own window (I have a beard), but it was dark enough that they couldn’t agree that the jacket being stolen was my wading jacket. In their defense, it was dark and they’re assholes.
These videos led to the rather-quick apprehension of a man who is as crappy a criminal as he is a person, and when providing an alibi to prove innocence of a drugs crime, provided evidence that he'd been busy stealing my shit by producing some of my shit that he still had, which saved a lot of time on a trial. I was getting informal and totally-off-the-record info, and it was this source that told me my rods and reels had been recovered. They weren't. Apparently just my flask and backpack were, and Meth Man had traded my rods and reels to his dealer for meth. In case you're curious, it turns out that ~$3500 of rods and reels will get you about a weekend's worth of meth. Fly fishing’s a fairly cheap and healthy hobby by comparison.
Meth Man was able to give police information about the dealer he’d traded them to in a different part of the OP, which I can imagine was borne out of the hope that he’d get a deal. Whether he did or not I’ll never know, but apparently this led to some federal acronym agencies getting involved because reasons I’m still not clear on, but apparently there’s a lot of meth being cooked in them thar hills. Anyway, it turns out that either that dealer had my stuff, or they coincidentally had exactly the same taste in fishing gear and absolutely no waders, wading boots, etc. None of the acronym agencies really cared about me or my stuff, but they have a hard time getting rid of anything they have ahold of in a timely manner. Fortunately by this time I had pieced together the serial numbers of my rods, and several hero shots showing the reels. I figured I’d get my stuff back quickly once folks in the know talked to folks in the have about my gear. I figured my stuff was unrelated to the big things and just sitting at the local PD in what amounts to a lost and found. I figured wrong.
If you ever are on the victim-side of the law, know that the agencies don’t really give a single crap about you. The people try to, but the agencies aren’t set up to help you. They’ll usually agree that it’s almost certainly your stuff. Most of the time they’ll agree that they have it. If they’re currently agreeing that they have it, they may or may not agree that they don’t need it anymore. If they agree that they don’t need it anymore, they may or may not agree that they’re done with it (two separate things?). If they agree that they’re done with it, they may agree that they can release it to you. If they agree that they can release it to you, they may not agree about which warehouse it’s in—or even which city it’s in. And so on, and so forth.
Lessons Learned/Advice:
1. The folks on this forum, and in the greater fly fishing community are awesome, helpful, and generous.
2. Apple AirTags may be $30/each, but they conceal nicely in the top or bottom of a rod tube and are very traceable. They also fit well in backpacks and in wading jackets. I didn't use them before, and I'm still balking at buying more than a couple, but that would have helped immensely. No idea if there are other products out their like them, but getting some for your things is a good idea.
3. Get and keep receipts of everything--even gifts. Take photos of serial numbers, etch your name into reels that don't have serial numbers and take photos of them.
4. Get an insurance company that doesn't suck. Send that company all the serial numbers and have things added to your policy.
5. Make sure your policy doesn't have a cap for stolen items that is lower than the value of your things.
tl;dr: Recently I learned that my rods and reels are sitting in a place near Olympia. No one knows why they're there instead of where they're supposed to be, but apparentl I'd "be surprised as the places things end up, or how often they simply go missing." Anyway, the acronym that has them is currently willing to have come me go pick my things up. I have not yet had the time to go get them, but I'm looking to do so soon.
Disclaimer: I’m changing some names and also may unintentionally muff an explanation or accidentally mischaracterize how some of the things were handled by various agencies. A lot of my information is informal/pieced together, and some is from “off-the-record” conversations I “didn’t have” with various people at different levels. If what I post here contradicts something I told you in-person before, at the time I said whatever, that is the “truth” as I knew it to be. There’s been a lot of reading between the lines, hints, and things have never been/will never be fully explained or understood by or known to me—I’m just the victim of the theft.
I promised the story of what happened, so here’s what happened(?), and I’ll add some hard-won advice.
Last March I had spent the day fishing the SD and stopped off with some friends at a restaurant in Port Angeles. After dinner and drinks, I came out to find my car's back passenger side window broken out and some jackass had broken in and helped themselves to my rods (fortunately I'd only brought two), a backpack full of dirty clothes, a flask, a travel humidor of cigars, a pair of my friend’s (5'2", 120lbs) pants, and my (6'7" 290lbs) wading jacket and the < $1 change in my cup holder.
I called the police, who eventually came out, took down my information, and told me to call my insurance while they looked for an orangutan with larceny in its heart.
I called my insurance, let's call them Totally Not Horace Mann, who asked me for the serial numbers of my rods and reels and to submit to them along with the proof that I'd purchased all of those things. I had none of those things anywhere (my bad), so they helpfully advised me that I was screwed. They were also hesitant about covering the damage to my car as they figured I might've thrown a broken spark plug through my own window while I was eating dinner in order to steal my own shit as a way to commit insurance fraud. But since I had fooled the police into writing a report, eventually they coughed up the money to pay for that. If you saw a silver Pathfinder driving around the Seattle area in April with a cardboard window reading "Not Horace Mann F*cking Sucks", that was probably me.
I put out the all-call to folks here and other places, and hoped my stuff would be found--consigning myself to a disappointing end to a so-so steelhead season.
Combing through old photos I was able to recover the serial numbers for the rods, but as I wasn't the purchasing owner it was no help. Totally Not Horace Mann didn't cover the used rods, reels lines, tips, etc because I had no proof I'd ever owned them. They also didn't want to replace my dirty laundry, but did offer to replace my jacket if I could prove I'd had it in the car. I crossed my fingers that the criminal/orangutan would eventually be caught with all my stuff as that seemed the only way.
I borrowed gear from folks, traded some rods I wasn't using for quasi-replacements, inherited some rods from retiring fisherfolk, and hoped for the best. I discovered I loved the Sage X 8130 when it went on sale, but I missed my old rods with their rash, nicks, hand-grooves cork, and mojo.
Fortunately, police had video of Meth Man in action thanks to video cameras being fairly ubiquitous. Eventually this was enough to convince Totally Not Horace Mann that I hadn’t broken my own window (I have a beard), but it was dark enough that they couldn’t agree that the jacket being stolen was my wading jacket. In their defense, it was dark and they’re assholes.
These videos led to the rather-quick apprehension of a man who is as crappy a criminal as he is a person, and when providing an alibi to prove innocence of a drugs crime, provided evidence that he'd been busy stealing my shit by producing some of my shit that he still had, which saved a lot of time on a trial. I was getting informal and totally-off-the-record info, and it was this source that told me my rods and reels had been recovered. They weren't. Apparently just my flask and backpack were, and Meth Man had traded my rods and reels to his dealer for meth. In case you're curious, it turns out that ~$3500 of rods and reels will get you about a weekend's worth of meth. Fly fishing’s a fairly cheap and healthy hobby by comparison.
Meth Man was able to give police information about the dealer he’d traded them to in a different part of the OP, which I can imagine was borne out of the hope that he’d get a deal. Whether he did or not I’ll never know, but apparently this led to some federal acronym agencies getting involved because reasons I’m still not clear on, but apparently there’s a lot of meth being cooked in them thar hills. Anyway, it turns out that either that dealer had my stuff, or they coincidentally had exactly the same taste in fishing gear and absolutely no waders, wading boots, etc. None of the acronym agencies really cared about me or my stuff, but they have a hard time getting rid of anything they have ahold of in a timely manner. Fortunately by this time I had pieced together the serial numbers of my rods, and several hero shots showing the reels. I figured I’d get my stuff back quickly once folks in the know talked to folks in the have about my gear. I figured my stuff was unrelated to the big things and just sitting at the local PD in what amounts to a lost and found. I figured wrong.
If you ever are on the victim-side of the law, know that the agencies don’t really give a single crap about you. The people try to, but the agencies aren’t set up to help you. They’ll usually agree that it’s almost certainly your stuff. Most of the time they’ll agree that they have it. If they’re currently agreeing that they have it, they may or may not agree that they don’t need it anymore. If they agree that they don’t need it anymore, they may or may not agree that they’re done with it (two separate things?). If they agree that they’re done with it, they may agree that they can release it to you. If they agree that they can release it to you, they may not agree about which warehouse it’s in—or even which city it’s in. And so on, and so forth.
Lessons Learned/Advice:
1. The folks on this forum, and in the greater fly fishing community are awesome, helpful, and generous.
2. Apple AirTags may be $30/each, but they conceal nicely in the top or bottom of a rod tube and are very traceable. They also fit well in backpacks and in wading jackets. I didn't use them before, and I'm still balking at buying more than a couple, but that would have helped immensely. No idea if there are other products out their like them, but getting some for your things is a good idea.
3. Get and keep receipts of everything--even gifts. Take photos of serial numbers, etch your name into reels that don't have serial numbers and take photos of them.
4. Get an insurance company that doesn't suck. Send that company all the serial numbers and have things added to your policy.
5. Make sure your policy doesn't have a cap for stolen items that is lower than the value of your things.
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So did you have to put a dollar in the swear jar everytime you picked your kids up from school and they saw your car?
