question about party boat fishing

hi folks, i went with my father in law on one of randys boats yesterday and we made chum like crazy. hocking everywhere and just plain sick. it was a great time. we fished deep, it was like 280-300 ft deep. how come we are not allowed to fish that deep as rec fishermen while the party boats can take a bunch of rec fisherman to places like this and drag up a bunch of fish with terminal expansion issues?

i saw many many canaries, boccaccio , all types of rf we were forced to end up throwing for the birds and there was no way to get them back down according to the boat folks. what a waste, so many nice big canaries gone.

why cant they make a rule that party boats which fish deep be required to keep even the canaries as part of the boat's catch? i saw way more than 20 big canaries tossed to the birds.

something was not right there.

john

Where were you fishing?  Down south (and I mean SoCal) you can fish rockfish as deep as 320 ft. of water.  Up here you can either fish to depth of 240 ft or 180 ft depending on where you are.  I think Monterey Bay is 240ft.  As for the charter boats.. well they have to follow the same regs we do.   If you were fishing in 300 ft of water in an area that rec fishers can only fish to 240ft than the charter boat was getting away with something.  Somebody should have called CalTip.

As for the canary bit, even at 100 ft they don't always survive.  It's sad but until canaries are off the no take list, it's going to keep happening.  In a kayak it's easy to move to another location away from the canary school on a large charter boat that doesn't always happen.

Brian

i saw many many canaries, boccaccio , all types of rf we were forced to end up throwing for the birds and there was no way to get them back down according to the boat folks. what a waste, so many nice big canaries gone.

john

John,

I have heard this before and I do not understand it at all. The Shelton Fish Descender ( http://www.sheltonproducts.com/SFD.html )has been out and available for awhile now, it appears to have been proven effective. You would think party boats would want to use it to help maintain their own livelyhood. Especially when it is not unheard of to get limits of rockfish for 40 anglers. That is 400 fish kept but how many floaters were left to limit everyone out?

Jeff

I am not a fan of party boats but...

How do you know you where actually in 280-300 foot depth? You can't really tell that just from the line you let out.

I would hope those guys would use fish descenders but I would guess they are a lot more work for them when you have 40 people on the boat all pulling up fish. With one deckhand it is likely the fish will die for exposure before they are sent down with the descender.

I am not a fan of party boats but...

How do you know you where actually in 280-300 foot depth? You can't really tell that just from the line you let out.

I would hope those guys would use fish descenders but I would guess they are a lot more work for them when you have 40 people on the boat all pulling up fish. With one deckhand it is likely the fish will die for exposure before they are sent down with the descender.

dang, i had my gps but didnt mark the area because i was busy rigging my father in laws gear, the boat we were on was down south in carmel somewhere. there was some fog so it was hard to kind of eyeball where we were at. if i had the gps numbers i would go check it out myself on my friend's boat.

the poles we were using had 40lb test line on them and they also had the linecounters on them. i use the magda pro's by okuma which seemed pretty accurate when i was fishing the areas i usually freedive at in monterey. also i have compared the readings to the fish finder i have on the kayak and when i drop line the counter is pretty darn close usually unless i forget to zero it out sometimes.

we were drifting a bit and the swell was good sized but i purposely used a 1lb cannonball weight which i had a few of in my box in order to drop straight down on the reef we were on yet my reel exceeded 300 ft readings in more than 10 drops. i got pretty wore out cranking it up so many times too.

i thought the reason we went out there was because they had a special permit or something. there were lots of big rf and so many were tossed back in with the air bladders popping out of their mouth and eyes all bulged out only to get eaten by birds.

there is the possibility of my gear being faulty but we both had the same setup and both registering over 300 ft down on the drops with the large weights. same reels and poles etc...

anyhow, i thought it was weird to be fishing so damn deep. the fish were plentiful and the water was rough but something just felt really weird.

thanks folks,

john

If it was really that deep, not weird, but illegal.

John,

I have heard this before and I do not understand it at all. The Shelton Fish Descender ( http://www.sheltonproducts.com/SFD.html )has been out and available for awhile now, it appears to have been proven effective.

Jeff

[/quote]

Jeff you don't even need to buy the the Fish Descender. I started using a 7/0 Barbless J hooked rigged in-line but upside down works pretty well. Just hook the upper lip top down, drop down to the depth the fish was caught and lift the rod tip quickly and the fish pops off. It is easy and quick. I have fished on some better boats out of Santa Barbara who use the deep release cages.

Scott