PUTNAM COUNTY, FL -- Crabbers like Woody Hoyt of Palatka make their living trapping and selling blue crabs from the St. Johns River.

A recent increase of crab trap thefts over the last six months have hurt him and other crabbers.

Hoyt said, " These guys that do this take hundreds of dollars of stuff a week from us. It's not just one or two guys that do it. There's a lot of people who do it."

Thursday morning, Florida Fish a Wildlife investigators arrested 49-year-old Bret Colin Warwick.

They say he stole crabs from commercial traps in the river near East Palatka in May.

Lt. George Pottorf with Florida Fish and Wildlife said, "The river is not a real populated area and there are many wilderness areas. There are not many people around it. But fortunately this time there were four people that did witnessed the crime."

Pottorf said they all signed sworn affidavits saying they saw Warwick take crabs from traps.

After Warwick got out of the Putnam County Jail Thursday, he told First Coast News he did not steal anything from the crab traps. He said he just moved them.

However, that's still against state law. Warwick said, "Yeah, [another crabber's trap] was on top of mine -- four or five feet from my trap. I pulled his up and chucked it over the other sIde of the boat. Yeah, I was wrong in doing that. I confess to that."

As for Hoyt, he's not one of the victims in this case, but he said thieves need to be prosecuted in order to stop the crime that robs crabbers of their livelihood.