Dove Island Lodge will pay a fine and be on informal probation under a deal reached last week with state prosecutors.

The Sitka charter fishing lodge, along with owner Duane Lambeth, was facing 17 fishing violations, ranging from falsifying log books to exceeding limits on numerous species.

The charges stemmed from a sting operation by the Alaska State Troopers in 2009. Two undercover wildlife troopers booked a weekend at the lodge, and reported witnessing numerous violations.

In an agreement entered in Sitka Superior Court last week, the state agreed to dismiss all charges against Lambeth, and all but one charge against the lodge. Dove Island has pleaded guilty to aiding in the commission of a violation. The plea comes with a fine of $20,000 and five years of informal probation, which includes restrictions on where the lodge can take unguided fishing trips.

Andrew Peterson is an assistant attorney general in the state’s Office of Special Prosecutions. He says the state considers the agreement a “fantastic solution” to the charges.

“The entity is liable into the future,” Peterson said. “Whereas if you hold an individual guide liable only, guides come and go.”

A call to Lambeth for comment was not immediately returned.

The probation conditions include placing several locations off-limits. Dove Island cannot take unguided trips to Politofski, Plotnikof, Goulding and Salmon lakes. And the lodge must provide two weeks’ advance notice to the Forest Service with the names and contact information of everyone on any unguided trip into the Tongass.

Should Dove Island violate any of its probation conditions, the state can go back to the court and ask the company to pay the suspended portion of its fine – some $40,000 dollars. It can also ask the state to suspend Dove Island’s license for a year.

“This kind of a resolution should definitely have a dramatic impact on how this corporation does business,” Peterson said. “The goal here by the state was not to put a business out of business, and it wasn’t to result in a number of people being unemployed, but rather to result in this corporation or this entity complying with the laws, general deterrence of other entities within the area, and really a fairness of competition. Now everybody who’s operating in this area should be operating on a level playing field.”

Eric Morisky, who captained the trip where the violations occurred, pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the violations earlier this year.