One out of every 10 crab pots examined in a state-wide crackdown on Virginia's blue crab fishery lacked the necessary escape rings to make them legal, seafood regulators said yesterday.

In an unprecedented show of force, the Virginia Marine Police swept Virginia's waterfront Wednesday and Thursday in search of illegal pots.

About 70 law-enforcement officers and administrators -- the entire Virginia Marine Patrol -- participated in the coordinated action that included all tidal rivers, the Chesapeake Bay and the Eastern Shore seaside. "We opened a lot of eyes in a lot of places," said Virginia Marine Resources Commission spokesman John Bull.

One hotspot was a section of the James and Elizabeth rivers. "Down there, we found a 30 percent violation rate," among the crab pots examined, Bull said.

The surprise mission follows regulatory actions this year to stem a 70 percent decline in the bay's blue crab population and signals the commission's resolve to revive the economically important species.

"This will likely happen again," Bull added.

The fate of the blue crab and the industry it supports in Virginia and Maryland became an issue for the governors of both states who this year ordered their fishery panels to cut fishing pressure drastically.

Both states passed measures aimed at reducing the harvest of female crabs by 34 percent. The move is expected to cost crabbers in both states more than $7 million this year alone. But, a bi-state panel of scientific advisers said the new regulators are needed to avert a crab-population collapse and rebuild the resource into a sustainable fishery.

In Virginia, the commission shortened the season for catching female crabs by a month and eliminated the 100-year-old winter dredge fishery, which targeted mainly female crabs in hibernation in the lower bay.

It also mandated that watermen double the number of required escape rings in each crab pot by installing two 2?-inch diameter rings in the mesh cages to make it easier for undersized female crabs to get out. The new rule went into effect the first of this month. Watermen must also put smaller rings of at least 2 3-16 inch and 2 5-16 inch diameter in their pots in compliance with rules adopted in the mid-1990s when the crab population began faltering.

The cull-ring requirement angered watermen, who say they are being driven out of business by a combination of regulations and pollution problems.

But, Ken Smith, president of the Virginia Watermens Association, and a Northumberland County crabber, said scofflaws should not be tolerated. "There's a certain amount of people out there, I don't care what it is, they feel they are going to do it their way regardless. Those people are hurting those that are trying to do right."

Bull said the Marine Police organized the sweep after concluding that some watermen were ignoring the new cull-ring rule. "We routinely pull crab pots, but this was our first orchestrated all-hands-on-deck enforcement action," Bull said.

Marine Police examined 3,000 pots, found 300 that were illegal and confiscated the 200 they had room on their boats to haul away, Bull said. More than 100 watermen were charged with violating crab conservation laws, all misdemeanors.

Bull said recreational as well as commercial crabbers received charges. Police found some pots with no cull rings and found a few crabbers fishing without a harvesters license.

"We understand its tough out there [for watermen to make a living] but we didn't pass these laws as an advisory type thing," Bull said.

Contact Lawrence Latané III at (804) 333-3461 or llatane@timesdispatch.com.