Rockfish Closures are coming

I fish off power boat, I join this forum trying to return a shark bitten kayak and start reading some of the post.  This closure is just crazy if they base on Quillback. I been fishing area from the Farallons to Franklin Point since the 80s. All these years, the area we found most Quillback is at the island. If we are lucky, we may catch one a year outside that area. Are they trying to bring these fish into area where there is non to being with?

DFG decision is neverless been questionable. Since the season open this year, we normally limit by 9:00am, for sure not a sign of lack of fish.

This would be like close the hunting season in California because they are unable to find Polar Bear in the wild.

Good Morning Charles, when I speak of the commercial industry I am taking a more global than local comment. I am more concerned about how we seem to have a knee jerk reaction when a fish stock is depleted. I think if you look  overall around the world you will see overfishing of many species, in addition we are seeing change in behavior of many of the apex predators in response to  dwindling stock for them to eat. I think overall we must take more drastic steps as we are the front line of a major loss of fish species on the planet, much of which so far California is isolated from but not for long, Ron.

"Maybe somebody can unpack it and translate into plain English the relevance of its parts for some of us lesser mortals"...

I am wading through the reports, Blueyak.. and while I'm aware there are much smarter people than me on this forum, if I were currently employed by a gov't agency or consulting firm, I would have the good sense to keep my mouth shut. As i'm retired...I'll share what I understand.

Federal Agencies must ensure their actions don't endanger any species. The Endangered Species Act does not balance economic impact with species endangerment.   Quillback are long lived, low-reproduction species that have been identified as potentially endangered.  Pacific  Fisheries Management Council is charged with putting together a management plan to ensure that fishing regulations don't cause species to be endangered. They hired scientists to study the populations of fish and estimate the rates of take. They come up with estimates of how many metric tons of fish can be caught of each species and preserve their ability to sustain populations into the future. The models resulted in a number that can be taken without endangering that species. Although "no one targets Quillback", the data show a fair number are "discarded." Sampling of recreational and commercial fisherman determines how many fish get "discarded." At the beginning of 2021 agencies set limits that they thought would sustain the population, but included in the rule some "adaptive management" measures.  (That means they can change the rules if its not working out.) Data from 2022 indicate that more quillback are being discarded than is sustainable. Therefore the agencies are REQUIRED to shut down any additional fishing (e.g adjust bag limits and seasons). The data indicate that recreational near shore fisherman are discarding 2x the number of quillback as commercial fisherman.

Maybe that helps.  That said, what solutions can we propose to allow Quillback to thrive and allow us to fish?

This may explain the premature closure of the CA nearshore rockfish season: https://www.pcouncil.org/documents/2021/11/e-7-a-supplemental-cdfw-report-2.pdf/

Look at discards and mortality rates according to depth (Table 3). I don't think these high mortality rates consider the use of descending devices to drop quillbacks to depth. I searched the document and found no mention of descending devices. Modeled 100% mortality on a quillback brought up from 180 ft is extremely suspect to me.

Personal experience, I've never had to descend a quillback RF, even when pulled up from 160-170 ft. They never exhibited signs of barotrauma, I never saw them floating after they jetted back down on their own. Purely anecdotal, but it sounds like others have similar experiences with quillies.

At least the report states that more species-specific data are needed for quillbacks. If I were a CA resident, I would strongly recommend  the requirement for descending devices to be onboard and ready to use when bottomfishing. Require all rockfish caught beyond 180 ft that are not retained to be dropped back to depth using a descending device. Incorporating mandatory use of descending devices would reduce the modeled discard mortality rates, and more accurately reflect reality.

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?

You know at some point due to human activity we are seeing changes that effect our sport. I think commercial fishing is causing changes on a global scale which will ultimately effect us. With climate change,  we are seeing, the snow crabs season in Alaska collapsed this year and may not comeback, however D-crab are starting to move up to the colder waters, so this may be a new market. I think to say double edge sword is a simplification of these problems as the truth is fishing is not what is was 50 or 100 years ago. There was a time most Salmon came in at 50 lbs plus, now average is much lower. The Salmon season was closed this year and many talk of the water issues and we talk about destroying dams that effect Salmon movement. Now we are hearing about a chemical in car tires that can kill 80% of the young Salmon even if water flow is perfect. So there are many factors that are leading to this fish decline, most we can not control. The one which effects the population the most that we can control is commercial fishing, so they tend to be a big factor in my discussions. Again much of my attention is on global fish population as opposed to just local and one fish species, thank you, Ron.

At least the report states that more species-specific data are needed for quillbacks. If I were a CA resident, I would strongly recommend  the requirement for descending devices to be onboard and ready to use when bottomfishing. Require all rockfish caught beyond 180 ft that are not retained to be dropped back to depth using a descending device. Incorporating mandatory use of descending devices would reduce the modeled discard mortality rates, and more accurately reflect reality.

This seems to be a very practical requirement that would be a much easier sell than "no fishing allowed"
I rarely fish that deep, but have descended a few sad rockies. I would totally be on board for something like this.

You know at some point due to human activity we are seeing changes that effect our sport. I think commercial fishing is causing changes on a global scale which will ultimately effect us. With climate change,  we are seeing, the snow crabs season in Alaska collapsed this year and may not comeback, however D-crab are starting to move up to the colder waters, so this may be a new market. I think to say double edge sword is a simplification of these problems as the truth is fishing is not what is was 50 or 100 years ago. There was a time most Salmon came in at 50 lbs plus, now average is much lower. The Salmon season was closed this year and many talk of the water issues and we talk about destroying dams that effect Salmon movement. Now we are hearing about a chemical in car tires that can kill 80% of the young Salmon even if water flow is perfect. So there are many factors that are leading to this fish decline, most we can not control. The one which effects the population the most that we can control is commercial fishing, so they tend to be a big factor in my discussions. Again much of my attention is on global fish population as opposed to just local and one fish species, thank you, Ron.

I wonder if the 16,000 Chinese fishing vessels have anything to do with this.  Hmmmm…

Ever since they opened up more depth a few years ago I've thought it was a shitty idea.  Why not just make people fish in less than 100' of water?

I hardly ever encounter barotrauma - by design.

This would be like close the hunting season in California because they are unable to find Polar Bear in the wild.

Yes, while also claiming hunters already shot too many polar bears in California this season already. It doesn't make any sense.

I get the general drift of the 2021 assessment, what I’m more curious about is specifically how those numbers were arrived at, for instance what came from actual counts vs what were guesstimates/models etc, then beyond that how it all factored into a decision(-making process) like the one we got

Science should be immune to ideology but it’s not always the case

The 2021 quillback assessment may be totally legit

There have been prior stock assessments that weren’t, and similar management decisions that followed

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.

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.

This.

I have to say that party boats do a better job of keeping all caught fish. It is more the passengers that don't adhere to policy of keeping caught fish. There is still that percentage that don't want to follow the rules and toss floaters overboard. The captains and deckhands need to be stricter on the policy of telling anglers if they don't abide by the regulations, there day of fishing is over!

If these other states have adopted the descenders, it is just a matter of adjustment for us here in california.

Commercial rock fishing. Wow ! where do you start with that. Have they been asked for lower take ?

You definitely can't say there is not a problem. If you have only been fishing the ocean for a few yrs. you probably don't know the difference. If you have been fishing for decades, you have seen the decline in number and size. 



Al

Commercial rock fishing. Wow ! where do you start with that. Have they been asked for lower take ?

I've never seen nearshore rockfish species for sale commercially.  I usually only see slope rockfish.  Full disclosure: I don't shop very widely for commercial rockfish; I usually get it through my CSF or from known sustainable fishermen, so perhaps they don't target nearshore but others do.

Commercial rock fishing. Wow ! where do you start with that. Have they been asked for lower take ?

I've never seen nearshore rockfish species for sale commercially.  I usually only see slope rockfish.  Full disclosure: I don't shop very widely for commercial rockfish; I usually get it through my CSF or from known sustainable fishermen, so perhaps they don't target nearshore but others do.

My local 99 Ranch Market occasionally sells live Lingcod, Cabs and Black RF. I've seen commercial fishermen sell live RF in pens at Pillar Pt. Harbor.