Norcal fishing season

Why is the norcal, the real north, rock fishing season so much shorter?
Most California goes through December.

We were supposed to go to a May 15- Dec 31 season, but a nearshore (china) rockfish complex held it up.  Cape Mendo to Washington is the section we are grouped in.  Oregon caught and overfished chinas.   It's such a fucked up situation cause we have plenty of fish here.  Our local rep who I ran into today at the beach and explained this has been trying to get us separated from the current grouping.  He also explained how we are just a fish away from losing our season all together because of the screwy data they use.  For instance the petrale sole fishery which is grouped under the groundfish season and depth limits has basically been closed to sportsman because it is rare to catch Petrale sole inside 120ft. Even though the biologists screwed up on their petrale survey and data it has to go through a bunch of procedures before it will be lifted from the groundfish regs.  Keep in mind that it was listed this year as a sustainable fishery and at the top of suggested fish to eat.  We get screwed bad here up north since we have less people and get less time on the water.  There are only 4 harbors to launch from from Fort Bragg in Mendocino to the Oregon border which covers northern Mendocino county, all of Humboldt and Del Norte which is about 200+ miles of coastline.  Areas like Cape Mendocino and Shelter Cove contain yellow eye and canary rockfish and are no take fish.  Oregon and Washington catch too many yellow eye and canaries in their Comercial fisheries and areas south like the Bay Area kill lots of canaries while up here in the Real northern California we have reduced our incidental take of canary and yellow eye to near zero since our charters carry and use descenders unlike our neighbors south of us.

Pacific halibut is a whole other issue that we get screwed over on too, but Im not going into that one now.

I have to agree with Matanaska on this one. I have seen many canaries floating. The gulls usually get them. or pelicans. Sometimes they get stuck in a pelicans throat and two things are killed. But Matanaska: shouldn't blame everyone down here. some boats do descend the protected fish. The reason not all are protected fish are descended. Is the deck hand may not be close and the Idiot whom caught it threw it in the water. And the gulls get at it before anything can be done.   

Thanks for a good explanation . When do we find out the next year schedule?

The rockfish season is mostly determined by endangered species...in this case yelloweye rockfish. This year CA is allotted 3.4 tons of YE rockfish bycatch. If they somehow determine that we've exceeded that # they declare an emergency closure and shut down the season early. (Of course, the way they estimate YE bycatch is leaves a lot of room for error; fish counters asking fishermen how many YEs they caught multiplied by how many estimated anglers fished each day multiplied by an estimated 60% mortality rate = ?)
Through this voodoo math they say more YE are caught in the Northern and Mendo management areas. So those areas have shorter seasons and shallower depth restrictions...to limit bycatch of YE rockfish. I remember when they closed the season early in 2009? and everybody was blaming Shelter Cove because the DFG's voodoo math determined that region harvested more YE than the rest of the entire state and we exceeded the annual limit, which was like 2.5 tons. It was BS but that's why the seasons are shorter up there, to minize YE bycatch so they don't have to shut it down early.
Here's the 2014 YE harvest tracker: https://www.dfg.ca.gov/marine/groundfishcentral/tracking.asp

I am going to be cautious to the fish counter questions in the future. Didn't realize how they calculated our season.

So starting at Point Arena down is still good for fishing. Since I have not been down that way , can someone recommend a good launching area nearby there please.

Arena Cove is the easiest. On Port Road in Point Arena.