Rockfish Closures are coming

Who wins from this decision?  Gas and oil sales?  Motor boat sales?  Party boats? 

Oil burners can still fish. 

Add the boat rental/bait shop on Santa Cruz wharf and Stagnaro's Charters to the list of affected businesses

Will this effect the MBK tournament? I believe it would take ling off the table?

Will this effect the MBK tournament? I believe it would take ling off the table?

Adam posted on this in separate thread - reported that the event is a go, Halibut are the regular winners anyway and there are Perch to catch, too.

Who wins? Basically the commercial industry that is catching most the fish, recreational catch will loose big time and ultimately the fish population, as the commercial fishermen will decimate the fish till all fish will be closed to recreation. I saw an interesting interview with a salmon boat captain and he said, well we can't  catch salmon but we can catch halibut and we are killing it, so come on down and catch you fill. I guess the only possible bright side is as the waters in Nor Cal warm up, we may loose dungeness crab but the halibut from So Cal may come up to our waters and we may see higher catch limits and a longer season. We can always hope, R.

When you speak of commercial fisherman decimating the fish stocks off northern California which fish stocks are you referring to? Inshore rockfish? Off shore halibut? Commercial guys lost the salmon season and have had big cuts taken out of crab because of whale migrations. As far as economic power goes I believe the sports fishing industry have far more leverage than the commercial fleet. There has been a huge increase in the number of both PB and kayak craft the last few years and the pressure on rockfish stocks is intense. The quillback issue is a means the "deciders" chose to limit the fish take. A better solution is to half the limit per day.

The theoretical paradigm that we'll start to enjoy the opportunities of fishing warmer water fish species as the ocean warms up is a two-edged sword. Do we anticipate new fishing opportunities as a trade-off? Quillback rockfish southern range appears to be Sonoma-Mendo coastal waters, as attested by many who have caught few or none in local waters. You could blame overfishing by commercial fishermen, but you might also consider biomass shift to cooler waters as another reason for decline in population. I'm sure DFW didn't just pull the numbers out of their ass, as NOAA conducts a comprehensive, mandatory fish observer data gathering program aboard all commercial groundfish vessels. Oregon and Washington fishery biologists have also indicated that there appears to be a northward shift of fish populations as a result of warm water intrusion.

"I'm sure DFW didn't just pull the numbers out of their ass, as NOAA conducts a comprehensive, mandatory fish observer data gathering program aboard all commercial groundfish vessels."

I agree.  BUT, and this is almost a big BUTT

For the antlerless hunting season for a county in California, the decision to have the hunt or not was based on the county supervisor driving in to the office and his choice was determined on how many deer he saw. The science was ignored. 

I had chatted with several DFG biologists and they were very open and helpful on why we should have a doe season.  So, bringing it back to fishing, who is deciding and what are their drivers?  I'd like access to all the data used for the decision.  It is a democracy isn't it?  I'll be frank, I have more degrees than the county supervisors.  Why can't I review the data? 

Why can't I review the data?

Have you tried to get the data?  I wonder if you could through a Public Records Act Request... https://wildlife.ca.gov/General-Counsel/Public-Records-Requests

 
Replying to the comment...
 "I'd like access to all the data used for the decision.  It is a democracy isn't it?  I'll be frank, I have more degrees than the county supervisors.  Why can't I review the data? "

You can access the data here: https://www.pcouncil.org/managed_fishery/groundfish/

Spot burn complete…

The 2021 quillback stock assessment that has got us to the closure of all inshore fishing

https://apps-st.fisheries.noaa.gov/sis/docServlet?fileAction=download&fileId=8290

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

I got part way through it without going comatose but it was a close one

+1 to bluekyak, if someone could just help my feeble brain understand this, as I just can't seem to get past the idea of using estimated data

 

Data
The following types and sources of data were used in this assessment. Fishery catch and
composition data were specific to Oregon, however biological data were estimated coastwide
and included Washington, Oregon, and California sources.

Maybe, and I know it’s a big Maybe…
They will realize they F’ed up and open up in a month or two?
And yes I am smoking the good shit! Lol
Everyone is so frustrated, including me, but what can we do?

Scotty

Tomorrow is the last day 😢