By Jerry Harkavy,Associated Press Writer
Wealthy clients rally around a fishing guide accused of taking one bass too many.

PORTLAND – The case of the 11-inch bass has reverberated beyond the courtroom to the storied fishing lodges of Maine’s Grand Lake Stream and the canyons of Wall Street.

It involves a sting operation targeted at a popular fishing guide with an unblemished record, investment advisers who combine wine tastings with fishing vacations, and allegations of abuse of power by the Maine Warden Service.

The two-day trial of Randy Spencer on a charge of helping a client keep one fish more than the legal limit ended in a hung jury in June.

But the story doesn’t end there. An additional charge is pending, and the 56-year-old guide’s well-heeled clients in and around New York City have laid out plans for a dinner and concert in midtown Manhattan to raise money to help defray his legal bills.

The fish tale, which first surfaced in the Wall Street Journal and has since echoed on the CNBC and Bloomberg financial networks, has as its backdrop an idyllic fishing spot in Down East Maine where professional guides angle for affluent clients.

The problems started last year, say Spencer and his supporters, when the new owner of the venerable Weatherby’s lodge on Grand Lake Stream decided to get a liquor license. When the lodge informed investment adviser David Kotok that he and his fishing buddies would no longer be permitted to bring their special wines as they had done in the past, the group responded by taking their business and libations elsewhere.

Spencer, who had been a guide for Kotok, helped with the switch, a move that they say stirred up hard feelings among Weatherby’s guides.

Weatherby’s owner Jeff MacEvoy denied that there was any animosity and said he had nothing to do with any complaints against Spencer.

Two weeks later, according to Spencer, he began getting a series of phone calls from a man who identified himself as Al Begin of Waitsfield, Vt. The caller said he would be traveling to Maine and wanted to hire the guide for two days.

Spencer said he was booked solid, but the caller persisted and they found two days last summer when their schedules meshed. The two hit it off well, Spencer said, and the client caught and released about 50 fish each day. “It was a great two days,” Spencer recalled.

Three weeks later, Brad Richard, the young district warden, and his supervisor dropped off a summons for Spencer. At his arraignment the following month in Calais, the guide learned that he was accused of helping undercover officer Albert St. Saviour, who was posing as Begin, illegally take three smallmouth bass from Big Lake.

Spencer admits that there were three fish on the stringer and that he filleted and grilled them for his client as an hors d’oeuvre as they had lunch on an island during their first day of fishing. But the guide maintains that he caught one of the smallmouth bass and the undercover officer took his legal limit of two.

A guilty plea to the criminal charge and the companion civil charge of failing to report a violation would have cost Spencer $100 in fines.

More importantly, it would likely trigger the yearlong loss of his guide’s license, stripping him of his livelihood.

At the June trial in Washington County Superior Court, the prosecution presented testimony by St. Saviour and Richard. The defense put Spencer on the stand and subpoenaed Col. Tom Santaguida, the head of the warden service.

The case before the jury boiled down to a classic “he said, she said,” with no physical evidence on either side. “Only two people on the planet know what happened on that boat,” said Spencer’s lawyer, James Nixon.

The jury deliberated for nearly four hours before informing the judge that it was deadlocked, prompting a mistrial.

To Spencer, the silver lining is the way his clients have rallied around him.

The fund-raising dinner for Spencer is set for Nov. 5, with the entertainment provided by the guide himself. Spencer supplements his guiding income by writing newspaper columns and as a singer-songwriter. His most memorable hit was “Black Flies,” a ditty that he said topped the local charts nearly 25 years ago.

Spencer’s supporters, meanwhile, are vowing to seek answers to why a guide they characterize as having the ethics of a Boy Scout was singled out as a target.

“I see a young 20-something game warden trying to make a name for himself by taking down a community pillar, and some jealous competitors and a whisper campaign,” said Kotok, the chairman of Cumberland Advisers of Vineland, N.J. “And now that they were caught in it, the game warden bureaucracy is trying to dig in its heels and protect its turf because it backfired on them and they’re embarrassed.”

Santaguida said the vilification that the warden service has received from Kotok and others has been matched by support from other members of the public, and he has no regrets about launching the investigation.

Santaguida, for his part, is confident that St. Saviour, a veteran warden who has since retired, got it right and “what he says happened, happened.”

“We hold guides to a very high standard,” Santaguida said. He declined to reveal the identities of the tipsters who triggered the investigation but said the undercover officer’s finding validated their complaints.

Spencer was due to stand trial again last week but the charges were dropped.

Santaguida said he and the local prosecutor agreed it was not worth the time and effort to retry such a minor case. But the state still plans to proceed with the Sept. 22 trial of the civil complaint against Spencer for failing to report the violation. That case will be decided by a judge and requires a lower standard of proof.

Meanwhile, Spencer’s legal bill has already reached $15,000 and is headed higher. Santaguida said the costs to his budget-strapped department have been minimal – less than $500 – but that doesn’t include the time put in by wardens or court-related costs.

“It’s hard for me to find a winner in this anywhere,” Spencer said.

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On the Net:

http://www.randyspencer.com

http://www.weatherbys.com

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