Good news for rockfishermen, nearshore fishing recommended

NOYO HARBOR, 3/18/24 — A six-day long meeting of the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) in Fresno last week had plenty of people at Noyo Harbor debating the impact of fishery regulations for 2024. The PFMC is a quasi-public agency of marine experts ranging from weathered fishermen to university professors. The suggestions they make are enacted into law by state agencies in California, Washington, Idaho and Oregon. The Fresno meeting considered the science of fish populations and made recommendations of proposed fishing seasons for dozens of sport fishes. A follow-up meeting will take place March 25 in Santa Rosa, at which the agency will take public input on whether fishermen should get a crack at Chinook salmon.

The good news coming out of Fresno for the Mendocino Coast is that the agency’s proposal for rockfishing will allow what locals and visiting fishermen to the county have been begging for — a summer of nearshore rockfishing. This will let small boats and kayaks fish for  rockfish off Fort Bragg. But even that proposal faced criticism that science contradicts what fishermen are seeing at sea. PFMC agreed to do broader and better reassessments of rockfish stocks in 2025. Meanwhile, many salmon fishers criticized two different proposals that would allow very short commercial, ocean recreational and ocean river salmon fishing this year, after the fishery being closed for all of 2023, arguing that in this case the science demands a closure for 2024 as well.

On Thursday afternoon in Noyo Harbor, people were discussing the agency’s recommendations. Heather Sears was selling fresh chili pepper rockfish to eager tourists Thursday at her business, Princess Seafood in Fort Bragg. She may be Fort Bragg’s best known commercial fisherwoman, or man, and questions were flying her way in the busy market about everything from how to cook the fish to publicity about the upcoming fishing season.

“When can we go fishing?” someone asked.

“I don’t know what is happening with recreational seasons right now,” she said. “I know the commercial seasons. Those are enough to keep track of.”  Many are having trouble making sense of the regulations, as the new seasons are the most complex ever suggested by the PFMC. The commission forged a plan for recreational groundfishing that switches fishers from nearshore to deep water five miles offshore Fort Bragg five different times. The new methodology of regulations scrambles other commercial and recreational fishing seasons so that regulators can keep all the fishing in one area.

Sears said she didn’t plan to obtain the special permits needed to go halibut fishing with her boat and team of fisherwomen. Those permits, crafted by the PFMC, are for two 12-hour halibut fishing seasons. “There are some people doing it in Humboldt, I heard, but none here in Noyo Harbor,” she said. “I wish somebody would because I would buy [halibut] from them and sell it here at the market.”

The PFMC also changed the depth of what is defined as deep water. Party boats will now be fishing regularly in distant areas that were once reserved for commercial fishing. Sears isn’t too worried about that. “There are so few of us now,” she said, referring to the big drop in commercial boats in recent years.

Sears has her own preferred fishing grounds to the north, out of the range of almost all party boats. By all accounts, commercial fishing is increasingly difficult in these times of short seasons and fast-changing rules.“It doesn’t pay. That’s why I opened the fish market,” she said.

Party boat operators had mixed reactions to the proposals and also questioned the science. Richard Thornton was working Thursday aboard the Kraken, with a rescue puppy he had just adopted. Thornton and other party boat captains told the Mendocino Voice that they had been informed about what the season will likely look like, even though it has not been publicly reported but matches what was said at the meeting. Two Noyo party boat operators are telling their customers that they are planning for an April 1 season opener for groundfishing. During the first month, fishing will be limited to more than 50 fathoms or 200 feet deep, which starts about five miles offshore in Fort Bragg. Then in May, it will switch over to nearshore fishing of less than 20 fathoms or 120 feet deep, then in October it will switch back to deep water, back to shallow in November and deep water only to end the season in December. 

This plan has evolved since The Mendocino Voice wrote about the issue last month.

The news will be welcomed by the many kayakers and small boat operators who come from all over California to fish the rich nearshore ground fishery, several of whom were quoted in that article. Many have small boats that can’t safely go five miles offshore. But the issue that caused all this hasn’t been resolved. Have the quillback rockfish declined dramatically while most other rockfish increased? Many at the Fresno meeting said the PFMC is repeating an error made in the early 2000s when rockfishing was virtually shut down over worries by biologists that turned out to be greatly overstated.

For Thornton, his party boat can adapt but he says fishing deep takes some of the fun out of it, as heavy weights must be used, and it takes a very long time to reel up the fish.“You take a really good fisherman and put them out there, and it’s difficult. Nearshore, I can take out people who are not experienced and men, women, kids can all have fun catching fish,” he said. “For us, we will adapt to whatever the regulations say. But I think this is all unnecessary.”

The shallow and deep fishing flip-flop comes primarily because of quillback, a rockfish now listed as overfished at a time when most other rockfish have increased. Thornton maintains that the quillback is plentiful offshore and believes the assessments are wrong. That was actually a common theme at the meeting. At least two board members of the PFMC said they doubted the scientific assessments they were forced to act upon. There was extensive discussion of how fish populations are measured and many changes made to this process. During the Fresno meeting, members of the PFMC board expressed the same concerns that local fishermen and Thornton expressed. The meeting was full of challenges to assessments of numerous fish populations. 

Todd Phillips, a PFMC staff officer who specializes in groundfish, said the PFMC must go forward with the science it has, which was based on a medium level assessment from 2021. With all the challenges being made, the PFMC scheduled a full reassessment of the quillback, and several other rockfish to start in 2025. “We have all these people saying these quillback are not rare at all,” he said. “There are so many we can’t get away from them.” Among the loudest voices complaining about the science were from Del Norte County. The mayor of Crescent City and a Del Norte County supervisor were among those who spoke at the meeting about the economic impacts caused by science they called into question. 

“I think that’s pretty cool,” the PFMC’s Phillips said. “I like when people get interested and involved in the resource. But all of that is too late to change the facts in front of the PFMC. The net result of this discussion right now is we have to move forward with something called a rebuilding plan, which means that we need to take measures that really reduce the impact to the stock. It looks like the quillback population in California is going to be reassessed, and this would be a full assessment starting in 2025. The hope is that if we reassess it, maybe we come back with a better scenario, and we don’t have to take the rebuilding measures.“ 

Salmon another story, fishers advocate shutdown

There are three different options for salmon fishing. Two feature short commercial and recreational seasons. The third option is complete closure.

Perhaps surprising to some, many fishermen stood up in Fresno to tell the PFMC not to offer any salmon fishing and to forget the super short seasons.  They said fish numbers were dangerously low and that everyone should just wait till 2025 and let the salmon have a chance to bounce back. People who rely on salmon fishing as their main source of income said very short seasons wouldn’t pay any bills. Fishing guide Bob Sparre, who takes fishermen out on the Sacramento River system, told the commission it was time for everyone to get real about the salmon. “I’m a 35-year fishing guide on the valley rivers for salmon. And I have a recommendation for the 2024 management alternative analysis. And as much as I would like to see a thriving salmon fishery, you and I know that doesn’t exist anymore. The salmon returning to the Sacramento River are on the brink of a total collapse. We have a very low abundance. Closing it again is what needs to happen.”

He said that even if the department recommended an opening on the south side of the Delta, his fishing area north of the delta should be closed. “The department should close the Sacramento side so we can get greater abundance for future generations of salmon,” Sparre said.

Comments were wide-ranging, but during the two hours this reporter listened, most came from fishermen and women, and most told the PFMC to forget the short seasons. Many of the speakers had incomes that depend on fishing. 

Noyo Harbor party boat operator Thornton said he agrees with other fishermen who are telling the PFMC to close the fishery. “They should just close the fishing rather than offer the short seasons. The fish will be able to recover and then they can give us seasons in the future, when this benefit is realized.”

One factor not mentioned was federal fishery disaster aid for salmon, which depends on closures. Last year’s aid has not been forthcoming. If seasons are closed, disaster aid might be more likely, but that might also depend on which party takes power in November. The disaster payments issue is explored in this article in CalMatters.

The entire six days of meetings of the PFMC, with much science about all the fisheries off the Pacific Coast, can be found on this YouTube link.

For those interested in more information on the rockfish decision:

In federal waters off of California, the council recommended Option 2, with a 2-fish vermilion rockfish sub-bag limit south of Cape Mendocino as recommended by the Groundfish Advisory Subpanel (GAP) in Agenda Item F.8.a, Supplemental GAP Report 1, March 2024 except for the months where the fishery operates shallower than 20 fathoms and detailed in Agenda Item F.8.a, Supplemental CDFW Report 2, March 2024.

There are two kinds of salmon regulated in California. Chinook salmon are the only one that can be fished. They are the main migratory fish found in California’s larger rivers like the Sacramento and Klamath rivers. Rivers found in Mendocino County are primarily utilized by Coho salmon, which are a federally listed species due to erosion of their habitat, mainly caused by legacy logging.

After the March 25 meeting and another on March 26 in Oregon and two other public meetings, the final recommendation will be made during another six-day meeting in April.

Here’s more information about the three alternatives for salmon fishing in 2024 from the PFMC.

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