Well, that “someone” is a smart person!
I just didn’t, and still don’t, get the relationship that you alluded to between ghost traps in Canadian waters and Canadian poachers in US waters and why WDFW would insist on one because of the other.
Because they fish on both side of the boarder, if they only have 50 traps and they get seized when Fishing the Canadian side then they have none when they go to fish the American side. If Their gear is getting sized on both side then perhaps the opportunity cost becomes not worth it.
They are following the crabs around where the best fishing is or moving when they have fished out an area.
Ghost traps are not abandoned gear its gear that has no float that the traps are all tied together in a line and when the poachers go to retrieve it they drag a hook.
If you have no gear you can’t fish
The US pressures Canada to take enforcement action some of that is sizing gear so it can’t be used to fish on their side.
I tried to use the fishing rod analogy to imply you can’t fish if you don’t have a rod but it appears I failed