Probably nothing new, but...

I am sure this has been brought up before, but has there ever been any discussion about DFG Code incentives rather than restrictions to get people out of their gas powered boats? The obvious reason for this would be the whole carbon foot print argument. I am thinking of something similar to what we have now for shore based and spear fishing. Looks like both of those are open year round for cod based on them being a niche and take is limited to relatively low participation levels. Though there seems that there are currently a lot of kayakers out there, in reality, there are much less than those on private boats and charter boats. Rather than restricting take for all, perhaps they should loosen the season and regs for non powered boats such as kayaks, rowing skiffs and the like. Heck, I would bet that if they made the limit for Halibut 10 fish for non-powered boats, very few if any would ever bother to get close to a limit simply because of the logistics, but it might just be enough to get some folks out of their gas boats into a kayak. Perhaps even the MLPA's could be unrestricted for non motored boats. Ultimately, though I do not completely buy into the whole 'sky is falling' killer carbon argument, we all know the net-net of using a kayak regarding the whole green argument and it seems to me that incentives rather than restrictions would be a good way to be "green".

P.S., as an aside, and some history on my perspective, I am a recent re-entrant into the world of kayaks. I do have a gas boat, my beloved little Whaler, kept in dry storage at a marina. I visit her every other day or so after work. I do use her much less that years past. I often have my Mini-X on the roof of my truck. I will check the boat, make sure all is well, contemplate possibly taking her out for a few hours and try to get a fish, I then figure that gas will be at least $10-$15 and probably not worth it for just a few hours. I then think how much less work it is to just go and drop the Mini in the water, and I know that it will cost nothing other than some time that I could be spending sitting in traffic. So the net-net is, I still get to fish, I don't have to deal with pick-up/launch/load/wash/store and I burn no gas. Besides it is not like I would be filling coolers of fish with the gas boat anyway, I just want to wet a line. I bet there is quite a few people like me out there. I never see more than a few trailers at the ramp most days and most of the boats in the yard see little use ever since gas hit over $2.00 on land. Despite that, I know all those boats are cared for and the storage is paid for by people who want to fish but just figure well, it is a lot of work to take the boat out so maybe I'll go tomorrow.

There are my late night musings for this evening, any opinions?

I see your point regarding the halibut limits.  What I could see happening is the power boat guys would get the same limits as a kayaker unless seperate licenses where to made available.  How does a game officer know how each halibut was caught on the tag if he only sees what is on deck at the moment of checking.  The boater could easily say that the last 8 halibut were caught via kayak. 

Then if there were two seperate licenses, who's to say the boaters won't pay for both and use both legally and then really stir the pot by potentially limiting out on both licenses?

As for power boat ownership, I hear ya.  I have a 2005 16' aluminum boat that I purchased new with sick time that cash out at work.  Then I picked up my first kayak in the fall of 2008, and my boat hasn't seen water since. It is quietly growing moss on it in the side yard.   

The reason that rockfish are open year round to shore based anglers and spearfishermen has nothing to do with participation levels and everything to do with restricted RF species (canary, yelloweye, cowcod, brown spotted) Those fish reside in deeper waters, shore fisherman would never be able to access that kind of depth. Spearfisherman can ID the fish before shooting so there is no incidental bycatch of protected species.

I would rather not have the sate play with limit regulations and fish populations to promote going "green."

It will never happen.

DFG is a "business" now. And poorly run at that. If they can't make a buck from it, they aren't interested.