Rockfish Reg. Petition Workgroup - Need your help

Oppose.  This doesn’t seem well thought out, and groups different proposals together unnecessarily.

What exactly are your goals?  Seems like you want to reduce the limits, and require descenders, and enable non-motorized vessels.  They are all different topics.  Why couple them together?

What impact do non motorized vessels have on the fisheries?

-Allen

Oppose.  This doesn’t seem well thought out, and groups different proposals together unnecessarily.

What exactly are your goals?  Seems like you want to reduce the limits, and require descenders, and enable non-motorized vessels.  They are all different topics.  Why couple them together?

What impact do non motorized vessels have on the fisheries?

-Allen

Mandatory descenders make perfect sense and decrease release mortality significantly especially with our all depth seasons. It’s long past time to implement a descender requirement just like every other pacific coast fishery.

Oppose.  This doesn’t seem well thought out, and groups different proposals together unnecessarily.

What exactly are your goals?  Seems like you want to reduce the limits, and require descenders, and enable non-motorized vessels.  They are all different topics.  Why couple them together?

What impact do non motorized vessels have on the fisheries?

-Allen

Mandatory descenders make perfect sense and decrease release mortality significantly especially with our all depth seasons. It’s long past time to implement a descender requirement just like every other pacific coast fishery.

I can support that, but not lumped together with option  1.  Petition it on its own merits.

-Allen

Paul along a few other of us kayak anglers are unhappy about the minimum depth requirement  of 300 feet for a good portion of the season we had in the past years. It has essentially closed fishing to kayakers during that time. He wants to put together a petition to get it back.

He has thrown out a few ideas but has been clear that he wants a group to decide on what the petition would request.

Personally I would push for a normal season for kayakers based on the following: limited opportunities because of weather conditions, limited range (cannot take advantage of 300’ plus), and as a Clayman mentioned the  disenfranchised groups that have been targeted by the new requirements.

I am happy to help come up with a plan.

From all the reports I have been seeing down south, the management is working just fine.  There hasn’t been lots of yelloweyes caught and anglers are now getting the chance to harvest chili peppers, petrale sole, black cod and some lucky anglers are getting pacific halibut.  I go out to 300 feet on my kayak in Trinidad on occasion to target Pacific halibut and it is much further to get there than lots of places south.  Here up north we lost 3 months of rockfishing, but get to fish all depths.  I’m fine with that.  In fact I have only been out once cause rockfish and lingcod just don’t do it for me and some other anglers I know.  Salmon is what gets me on the water.  I would be more into a reduced bag for more time cause I don’t need to harvest 10 rockfish each time.  You guys down South didn’t lose much cause you still have July15-December 31 for nearshore which is plenty of time considering y’all have better weather and more than 2-3 times as many anglers fishing.  I don’t support the non-motorized aspect because I have seen so many floating yelloweyes and misidentifications by kayakers in areas like Sonoma and Mendocino where deeper water is much closer than our spots up North. 

I support mandatory descenders and a reduced bag limit for rockfish to get more time to fish.  Any of the other proposals is unnecessary.  Y’all guys have other good fisheries like White Sea bass that we rarely see up north as well as the bonito and mackerel y’all often get in Monterey and further south.   If anything the bag limits should be reduced south of Mendocino because yalll harvest several times more rockfish than we do here in the northern and Mendocino region just based on the number of anglers or the fish able days because your weather is milder than up north.  We always get the shit end of the regulations because we don’t have as many people speaking on our behalf while y’all have lots of cattle boats and plenty of people with the money to own big boats.  I have zero sympathy for anglers south of the Mendocino management area.  If your wanting rockfish so bad earlier in the summer, then plan a trip to our coast where the fish are bigger and more plentiful.  Our towns could use the income.
Also with the amount of incidental Pacific halibut being caught in places south of the northern management zone, y’all should be helping us get more pacific halibut quota so the season goes into October because it can be really good during that time and ithey tend to be a little bit shallower which some of y’all kayakers could catch one too

Here's my idea, the purpose of which is to reduce fishing pressure in shallow, more accessible (more vulnerable) waters.

Anglers with any black rockfish, blue rockfish, grass rockfish or kelp rockfish in their possession are limited to 5 rockfish per day.

That's all. Simple. And easy to enforce by wardens back at the dock. This will incentivize power boaters, who have to think about gas money, to stay offshore where they are less likely to encounter these species, lessening the pressure on the nearshore areas that we are concerned with in this forum. And yes, we, too, would have to be okay with 5 rockfish daily, assuming we catch any of the "listed" species. I chose those rockfish species because, unless I am mistaken, they largely represent the nearshore zones. If there are other species that would better achieve this, please name them.

My suggestion does not address the season length that Paul is concerned about. Maybe that could be woven in somehow.

Thoughts?

Paul along a few other of us kayak anglers are unhappy about the minimum depth requirement  of 300 feet for a good portion of the season we had in the past years. It has essentially closed fishing to kayakers during that time. He wants to put together a petition to get it back.

He has thrown out a few ideas but has been clear that he wants a group to decide on what the petition would request.

Personally I would push for a normal season for kayakers based on the following: limited opportunities because of weather conditions, limited range (cannot take advantage of 300’ plus), and as a Clayman mentioned the  disenfranchised groups that have been targeted by the new requirements.

I am happy to help come up with a plan.

That isn't entirely clear from the initial post.  Start with just proposing that, and don't make an issue with all the other stuff piled on.  The message is messy.

Historically I have been against kayak specific regulations.  I never thought there were enough kayakers to justify being special, and I have a similar concern as Clayman has on disenfranchising other groups.  I don't know that that has changed.

Happy to participate in the discussion.

-Allen

Even with descender devices, there is still what I would consider to be significant mortality rates.  It's not just what you keep that impacts the fishery, it's what you release and kill.

https://www.pcouncil.org/documents/2022/11/h-4-a-supplemental-gmt-report-3.pdf/

For the most part, the seasons are limited due to the impacts on copper and quillback.  At 30+ fathoms, you are still killing 30% of those released fish, even with the use of a descender.

In some parts of Alaska, they require you to keep the first N rockfish of an N rockfish limit, i.e., catch and release is not allowed.  And once your limit is reached, you are done.  I've always been a fan of this practice.

-Allen

In some parts of Alaska, they require you to keep the first N rockfish of an N rockfish limit, i.e., catch and release is not allowed.  And once your limit is reached, you are done.  I've always been a fan of this practice.

I've been wondering why this idea hasn't been part of the conversation, both in this thread and others. 

Are there specific tactics that result in larger rockfish?  I know with halibut and stripers, there are definitely tactics that result in more legal size fish vice shakers...  Maybe equipment/tackle requirement could be part of the equation too.

Are there specific tactics that result in larger rockfish?  I know with halibut and stripers, there are definitely tactics that result in more legal size fish vice shakers...  Maybe equipment/tackle requirement could be part of the equation too.

Don't use shrimpflies and smaller baits.  If you know you'll have to keep smaller rockfish if you catch them, you'll quickly figure out how not to.

-Allen

I see nothing wrong with a proposal for kayaks/human powered vessels to have a different restriction of depth limit.  Since they changed the rules and it favors those that have motors and punishes those that don't, why not try for a different depth restriction for them as well?

I talked to the fish counters last time I was out fishing, and asked if they record the type of vessel used in the survey.  They said that they do, mine would be marked as a kayak, and I think they mentioned boats, shore, and divers as other categories.  That made me want to know what the catch data shows for boaters vs. kayakers, or non-motoroized vessels. It could show that the impact of a single person in a human powered vessel is much smaller than that of a 2+ operated power boat.

I talked to the fish counters last time I was out fishing, and asked if they record the type of vessel used in the survey.  They said that they do, mine would be marked as a kayak, and I think they mentioned boats, shore, and divers as other categories.  That made me want to know what the catch data shows for boaters vs. kayakers, or non-motoroized vessels. It could show that the impact of a single person in a human powered vessel is much smaller than that of a 2+ operated power boat.

Would love to see that data.  I think nationally the numbers are like 4% of anglers are kayak anglers, at least that is the last data I saw, and it may be stale.  That being said, at 4%, to me, it seems to small to have specialized regs.  But if the real numbers show that kayak anglers are in the diver range (I assume they are the smallest user group of that set), I may change my thoughts.  The hill is less steep to climb.

-Allen

I probably should’ve just kept my mouth shut.
But it should be noted that these current regs are not permanent, and I doubt they will keep the 50-fathom shelf vs nearshore season component. They’ve changed the regs nearly every 2 years (bag limits/species/depth/seasons), based on the “best available data.” I think that’s a good approach, even if it makes people reread the regs each season. As far as the extremely short season this year…in the late 90s thru mid 00s, rockfish season opened May 1 and closed Oct 31. The establishment of RCAs (the regional depth limits) allowed them to give us longer seasons…because it reduced our affect on cowcod & yelloweye. So we’ve been kind of spoiled the last decade with long rockfish seasons.

If you want to join Rockfish Regulation Petition workgroup, please PM me your email address by this Sunday, July 9th.  I will email you tentative online meeting dates and times to check your availability.

Paul