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Messages - Tim in Albion

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 12
1
This is the heart of the matter, to me. I read through the document and my read was that they lack sufficient data on Quillback survival after release, so they assumed mortality equivalent to other demersal (bottom-dwelling) rockfish. I think most of us here would agree that is unsound, as Quillbacks appear to suffer less barotrauma than any rockfish other than Blues, and certainly are not comparable to, say, Gophers.

As to descenders, I asked James Phillips about that, and his response was basically that Oregon and Washington indicated poor compliance. The law says you must have one on board, so boaters carry them but won't use them. I didn't get any more information or data from him about that so I don't know if it is based on published research or anecdote.

The final aspect of this that bothers me is, the commercial fishery is not affected. The inshore stick-riggers can still fill their live-fish tanks for the Asian markets. And they like Quillbacks because they look pretty.
Tim

Clayman, you're thinking in the right direction.
A couple things you might consider. The model considers something they call "discards" but isn't obvious about whether they consider those 100% mortality or not. I believe they attribute a percentage (maybe 50%) survive.
As to whether the quillbacks you return from 180' make it because you don't see any barotrauma... I would say be cautious about that. I don't know how well quillbacks float, but they did quite a bit of research on survival rates.  According to their data a very high percent of fish from 60'+ die. Thats part of why the commercial guys think descenders make no sense. From their perspective any fish brought up from 200' feet is not going to make it, descended or not...
You're on the right track, though. How do we reduce quillback mortality and still fish?
I think descending devices didn't become common until the last few decades, and the recreational discard mortality rates used by CDFW in this report don't jive with the science of the last two decades. It was Table 4 in the report I linked. I'm including the table at the bottom of this post.

There are many studies on rockfish barotrauma and survivability when descended back to depth. Here's one that documented 100% survivability of descended quillback rockfish when caught up to 64 meters (210 feet) in depth: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19425120.2012.655849

Alaska, Oregon, and Washington all require the use of descending devices when rockfishing. I don't know why California hasn't followed suit. The science seems pretty clear that descending devices work.

My personal observations are purely anecdotal. I know they don't mean anything from a statistical standpoint. Just sayin, I've never had a quillie blow up on me.

2
CA Regulations / Re: RF Reg. Petition - Rockfish Nearshore Draft Petition
« on: September 03, 2023, 09:06:55 PM »
Hey Paul, good work, sorry I wasn't able to help.
I would like to suggest deleting the length limit altogether, as it seems arbitrary.
Perhaps I am biased though, as I often fish with a friend in his 20' rowing dory!
My alternate suggestion would be to limit the capacity of the craft, i.e., "carrying no more than two persons" - that accomplishes your goal of limiting take-per-boat, without establishing an arbitrary number that might lead to problems. It also makes enforcement easier, as they only have to count heads, instead of measuring length while on the water.
Numbers encoded in a regulation have a way of becoming difficult... next year someone might come out with a nice tandem fishing kayak just over 19 feet long... or someone mods his yak with a bowsprit or something. If the intent is to limit the number of fish taken by a single vessel, focus on that instead of the vessel length.

Again sorry to be coming in here late with this. I'm sure there will be multiple revisions if this proposal gains traction with the agency.
Tim

Non-motorized and motorized need to be defined.  Are sailing vessels motorized or non-motorized?  Battery powered motors?  Is there a horsepower cutoff?  Why 19’ limit? 

I appreciate all the effort that goes into something like this.  Good job.

We had a definition for non-motorized one point but decided not to include it in our petition since the term was commonly used already in the regulation.
We picked 19' to cover most of the fishing kayaks.  The longest popular model I know is the Stealth PROFISHA 575. Length: 5.75m / 18.86 ft.

Paul

3
I finally connected with James Phillips, who made the decision to close the nearshore fishery. Interesting conversation. He was very open and forthright about the rationale and the way in which CDFW manages these fisheries. I encourage everyone who has a serious interest in learning about the way this all works to contact him.

He sent me a link to one of the documents that bears on this matter: https://www.pcouncil.org/documents/2022/11/h-4-a-supplemental-gmt-report-3.pdf/
It's only decipherable to those with some scientific background. Fortunately that includes me.
Unfortunately my initial read-through suggests there is some very bad science going into these decisions.  In this specific case, as I suspected, there appears to be little or no actual data specific to Quillbacks on post-release mortality, especially if using a descender. So the numbers used in their modeling are based on grouping all the demersal (bottom-dwelling) rockfish together - meaning the same numbers are applied to Quillbacks and Gophers. As I am sure most of you will agree, these two species are vastly different; Gophers almost never swim back down on their own, Quillbacks almost always do. So I fear there is bad science here that is leading to poor decisions.

There's more and it will take me some time to really dig into it. One other disturbing fact he related is that the entire Quillback population from Cape Mendocino to Pigeon Point is treated as one number. So regardless of what happened here in Mendocino, if the numbers from San Francisco look bad, we lose.

4
Okay, I read the "Quillback Rockfish Inseason Informational Briefing" and still don't get it, and it sure looks like someone at CDFW is looking at a different fish than we are. Because the Quillbacks I (rarely) catch DO NOT suffer barotrauma - they are if anything even more eager than Blues to return to the depths. I have NEVER SEEN a "floater" Quillback. So a zero-take limit (which for some reason they never tried, and the gobbledegook in the briefing does not explain why not) would solve the problem.

I also have to wonder if they really have any data showing overfishing of Quills here in Mendocino. And I very much doubt their assumption that 76% of them are taken by recreational anglers - when the inshore live-fish stick-riggers are out there vacuuming up every Black-and-Yellow, China, and Quill they can find (those being prized by the live-fish market).

I just called a left a message for Mr. Phillips so will see if he can provide any clarity. I recommend everyone else do the same; our voices need to be heard.

5
Nice, I will have to do that route sometime - it's been on my mind for a while. Some mountain birds up there I need for my Mendocino County list. Have to figure out how to overnight up there or it's a super long day from the coast.

6
Fishing Tournaments and Events / Re: Albion open 2023
« on: January 22, 2023, 03:06:05 PM »
I'm not all that familiar with the 2023 regulations. Does that area open for rock fish on 7/16, or is it open earlier?

The season actually opens in May, but it's only open west of the 50-fathom (300 feet) contour. There is a reef out there, 2.5 miles WSW from the mooring rock (it's actually the ridge along the San Andreas Fault). I for one will not be paddling 2.5 miles to winch fish up from 300+ feet, that doesn't meet my definition of "fun" and it's also just a little too risky at that time of year. I have been caught 1 mile offshore in a sudden and unforecast wind and it made an impression on me.

So realistically the rockfishing season for us kayakers opens July 16 here in Mendocino.

7
Recipes / Re: Save your crab for later!
« on: December 31, 2022, 08:09:16 PM »
This is what I do as well. My wife and I went out on a charter and came back with 20 big crabs, spent two days picking and packing, and now we have crab pasta whenever we want. Which is pretty often!

I separate the white meat from the brown red meat. Seal in a consumer grade vac sealer. Put in the freezer. I’ve made pasta with crab based sauce from it and it tasted great.

8
Fishing Tournaments and Events / Re: Albion Open 2022 July 9th
« on: June 09, 2022, 08:51:00 PM »
Dang, I'm running the bar at the Albion-Little River Volunteer Fire Department BBQ fundraiser on the 9th. Up at the airport from noon to 5 PM, get there early if you want some homebrew!

9
I'm late to this party, but I had this same problem with my NOCO two years ago, and had to return it for a replacement. It was in fact defective and they did replace it with a new one, which has worked fine ever since.

10
Safety First / Re: How can I add a visibility stripe to a kayak?
« on: April 11, 2022, 08:18:49 PM »
I remember seeing a guy in the big blue at Pacific City that had a flag that also had a tinsel pompom on it….. you could see that thing glimmer  from shore when he was out at Haystack rock.
Now that is just genius. I gotta find me a tinsel pompom and clip it to a spare rod.

11
General Fishing Tips / Re: 365 day fishing license...
« on: November 09, 2021, 05:30:41 PM »
The soonest it will be implemented is January 2023.
And only if the Director authorizes that. It's left to his discretion.
EDIT: Actually it looks like the January 2023 implementation is for the electronic license. There isn't a date specified for the 365-day license, it's up to the Director.

Is it too late to buy a lifetime license?
No, and if you interpret the new language to mean the Director will hike the prices (seems likely), this is probably a good time to get one.

12
Interesting article about management methods: https://www.kqed.org/news/11628089/california-ecologists-strike-back-against-invasive-green-crabs
Yes, very interesting, especially this:
"In 2014, after the team had removed most of the larger adult crabs from the lagoon, they saw the population skyrocket to over 300,000. It turns outs the adults cannibalize baby green crabs, keeping the population in check.

“What we did was undertake a management method, to find it failed horribly,” Grosholz said. “So now we have a strong recommendation for future efforts to control species like this.”

Grosholz's findings help support an environmental theory known as overcompensation. The idea posits that controlling an invasive species can backfire unless it's possible to remove every individual at once."

Invasion biology consistently follows a pattern: early colonization followed by explosive growth, followed by a long period of ecosystem readjustment and gradual (sometimes sudden) decrease in the invader population. Often there is a panicky response from humans during the explosive growth phase that does more harm than good. The explosive growth phase always grabs attention, both popular and scientific, and is inevitably accompanied by dire predictions "if current trends continue." Which they generally don't, except in island-type ecosystems.

It's pretty clear there isn't an easy way (or even a hard way) to reverse a Green Crab invasion - they are now a part of the ecosystem and will be here forever. That means the ecosystem will never function quite the way it did before. That seems "bad" to us, because we want everything to be the same as it was when we grew up, but that's not how the world works.

I'm going to interview Dr. Grosholz for our radio program, The Ecology Hour http://ecologyhour.wordpress.com.

13
Are they edible?  If yes, what is the size/bag limit?
Not only edible but reportedly delicious - some say better than Dungeness. Problem is the small size, you spend an hour cleaning to get one meal's worth of meat. Bag limit is 35 and I don't think there is a size restriction. Most of them are in the 3-4 inch range.

14
Tried crabbing in Big River on opening day. First off, it was a crazy scene, at least two dozen boats in the water including several powerboats. Not used to seeing that up here.
Crabbing was a total bust. I only heard of one or two legal size Dungeness.
New to me was the European Green Crab, which far outnumbered the few Dungeness I pulled up. Last July I don't remember seeing any - this time it's almost all you catch. Apparently the same story on the Albion, and I just talked to some guys throwing snares in the Noyo and they are getting them too.
So, we are in the early explosive-growth stage of an invasion. Probably won't be worth trying the rivers/estuaries here for a couple of years at least. I just hope those things don't move out into the open water as well.

15
CA Regulations / Re: Nesting Birds
« on: August 21, 2021, 05:50:31 PM »
Thanks for posting this!
Here in northern California, most songbirds begin nesting in April/May and finish by mid-August. Migratory birds are now beginning to move and any young still in the nest this late are unlikely to survive.
Raptors generally nest earlier and most of those have long since fledged young.
So, now is a good time to start working on the trees and shrubs.

One other consideration though: Standing dead trees should be left undisturbed if possible. If falling limbs are a hazard, cut them back and leave a few "stobs" sticking out for perches. At least a dozen different species of birds rely on standing dead snags for nesting. People think they are unsightly and cut them down, depriving those birds of nest sites, and several species are in decline because there isn't enough "snag forest" habitat now.

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