Are we doing the right thing?

>Especially with the low productivity in juvie rockfish being reported this season. If I remember right, sample trawls this year are showing the lowest densities ever recorded - for juvie rockfish and for planktonic feed such as krill etc.

I'd like to see hatcheries for many species of rockfish to address their shoddy reproductive success.  Only about 1 in 5 years has good recruitment even in normal times.  Abalone have the same problem too.  I'd think they could build a self sustaining system with the $15 report card money and repopulate the entire coast.  Climate change is going to have both species on the CA-ESL by the time we retire unless their reproducive success is artificially augmented.

....IMO: those people are called "hyppos"

Yea and I bet some of those people would eat comercially caught fish.

Good points and support here.  I agree, and I'm encouraged to see the conscientious thoughts expressed.  I think a catch and release tourney could work if we fished in pairs or threesomes and were all outfitted with large-hook electronic scales and digital cams.  Yes, there would be valuable competing time taken away while you assisted one of your fishing partners with a weigh and photo, but we do this anyway when we help gaff or even just cruise over to watch the battle--this point is for me what it's all about.  When I take people fishing I love to share in their moment of glory, and when they catch a nice ling I point out that "the fleet" caught a nice ling!   (especially when they're in my boat using my gear!)     Pairs or threesomes of fishermen could share in the loot too...  Just some thoughts.  I've never taken a limit of rockfish, but I've caught tons (probably literally!).

If your interested in a catch an release tourney, talk to the guys at The Plastic Navy.

They have a lot of experience with catch and release tourneys in SoCal.

The issue is how to keep fish spritely untill they are weighed.  Not a big deal with 1-3 pound spotties, but with 20# lings......

Looks like an awesome tournament.

MolBaser

Mr.pescadore ,It would be very wise not to MENTION the place  north of where we had out tournament to everyone who goes on this site.We respect the water and the areas that we are able to get to no matter how far,how difficult  as long as it's safe.We do understand how you and other northern  calif residents feel.It is our right to speak within proper guidelines to our members about any speical events and share pictures of all catches .I hope that the boat ramp will not be full now because of the mentioned area were to launch a boat.I hope that I'm not offending anyone with this post.

I think the males can be 15 and the females 20 years old.

Not according to this classic series...http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/wdb/pub/0195.pdf see page 4.  If you look at page 5 there is a great length to age relationship.  Our 39 inch winner is essentially 100 cm, so I was wrong, it wasn't 8 or 9, it was likely 10.  The reason we don't see many of the bigger fish these days is because this stock was beat to hell at one point.  The sport regs. put in place in 1999, as much as they hurt initially, have done an outstanding job of recovering this stock, too bad sebastes don't grow this fast.

I personally would like to reserve my right to keep a few fish.  I enjoy fresh seafood.  I feel better about eating fish collected via my hook and line vs. some trawler dragging rock-hopper gear that just thrashed the whole f'ing joint.  Over the course of the weekend me and my son retained two lings, and 3 reds...hardly raping anything.

The small group of people in Elk that were against this also though ffs were evil, and our boats were "high-tech".  I won't be changin my ways to satisfy their ignorance.

It seems like the info about ages varies and I've got a hunch some of it is speculation. I see from your profile that you're a biologist so I'll defer to you on that one.

I didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't keep any fish. I do it all the time. In fact I've been fishing from a yak for somewhere in the neighborhood of 32 yrs and almost always bring something home, especially now that I'm married into a Chinese family.

When somebody told me about this website the 1st thing I noticed was that people are sporting fat stringers of fish that in pre-cheap-fisherfinder times would have only been caught by some of the more saavy and hard-working fishermen among us and I thought hmmm, some pretty good fishermen there, then I notice the little ff's in the background.

Which is fine, it's just hard for an old-fashioned guy like myself to see how that wouldn't suck the juice out of what fishing is, and I have a hard time seeing how doing things that way warrants any sort of respect. I don't think there's anything particularly evil about it, maybe just a bit goofball. It looks more like a video game than dropping yourself into the elements and using your senses and gut instincts which is about 99% of it for most of the people I know. But honestly I could care less what anyone else does, unless of course they fish a place dry, which believe it or not happens. But I won't make the assumption that anyone here is doing that.

Having fished with alot of the locals up north for a number of years I know that's partly the mindset they're coming from. It isn't that any of them are any more or less ignorant than anyone else, and if you're going to call people assholes I'll introduce you to a few of them and you can do it the honest way.

But it'll be too bad to alienate everyone in sight while this "sport" of kayak fishing is in its infancy. When the sot's started showing up on the scene, maybe 4 or 5 years ago in this area anyway, I had a few concerns myself, but they had more to do with access issues, which is a subject for a whole other discussion. Some of the best access has already been shut down and since a lot of the beaches we're launching now are actually illegal to launch a kayak from, as visibility goes up the rangers are going to find it hard to look the other way, which they've generously done for some decades now. Some of the posts I've read on this website describing crash-landings etc bear this out. They have to put the safety of kids playing in the surf before the rights of kayakers.

What this will mean for me personally is that when the rangers are forced to stick to the law and tell me I can't launch where I've launched for the last 32 years, well I guess I'll just have to go someplace else and paddle a bit further. I'm probably getting too old for this anyway and I'm not going to get my shorts any more bunched up about it than they already are.

to our welcome guest. it may be true that increased kayak presence on the north coast may cause friction with the rangers, among others. but we are not the problem, the problem is the unjust regulation prohibiting us from the beach in question. when that regulation was enacted where were you? did you speak to the park system as you speak to us? perhaps if this club had been around at that time we could have worked together to prevent it. maybe we will work together in the future to correct this injustice. our state constitution has certain guarentees for fishing and navigation.
ps. thank you for your input, your opinions are welcomed.

I agree that there are probably plenty of fish left in the region in question, but it's good that people are speaking out about it now, rather than after the fact. Looking at the size of some of those rockfish, I'd say the limit should be THREE. Some of those reds look about 20." Nobody needs to keep more than a few 20" fish, not to mention 10, the current limit.
 I respect the fact that many of you only kept a few rockfish. I saw a power boat fishing near me a few weeks ago, and the four guys on board were keeping EVERYTHING...it was pitiful how small these rockfish were, and it makes me think whether size limits should be put in place for rockies...

Mr.pescadore ,It would be very wise not to MENTION the place  north of where we had out tournament to everyone who goes on this site.We respect the water and the areas that we are able to get to no matter how far,how difficult  as long as it's safe.We do understand how you and other northern  calif residents feel.It is our right to speak within proper guidelines to our members about any speical events and share pictures of all catches .I hope that the boat ramp will not be full now because of the mentioned area were to launch a boat.I hope that I'm not offending anyone with this post.

You are right about that.  I'm not offended.  And I apologize for the oversight.

to our welcome guest. it may be true that increased kayak presence on the north coast may cause friction with the rangers, among others. but we are not the problem, the problem is the unjust regulation prohibiting us from the beach in question. when that regulation was enacted where were you? did you speak to the park system as you speak to us? perhaps if this club had been around at that time we could have worked together to prevent it. maybe we will work together in the future to correct this injustice. our state constitution has certain guarentees for fishing and navigation.
ps. thank you for your input, your opinions are welcomed.

That regulation has probably been around since before I was a twinkle in my daddy's eye and words like injustice might be kind of big for the situation.

Probably because the rangers are outdoors types themselves they've always been sympatico and when I do speak to them it's as politely as I can manage, which ain't hard because they really are doing me a favor. If they let me launch and then I come in on a big break and crash land on a bunch of kids it's their ass that's on the line. If we show up in big numbers get into arguments it'll probably all be moot anyway and if we land on somebody's kids it'll probably be over in a heartbeat. The state park police are more hardass about regs so I've always laid low when they're around writing cites for dogs being off leash etc.

The bigger picture is that we should all probably be treading a little lightly til we see how some of this shakes out. There are a couple of things going on that could change things for good as far as fishing our coast is concerned and the more civility we show toward rangers locals kids on the beach and fish populations etc the better.

As for me I'm more sympatico with any of the above than with anyone else involved.

Incidentally my name is Paul and I usually log on as bluekayak.  I didn't mean to keep anybody in the dark about who I was.

 I respect the fact that many of you only kept a few rockfish. I saw a power boat fishing near me a few weeks ago, and the four guys on board were keeping EVERYTHING...it was pitiful how small these rockfish were, and it makes me think whether size limits should be put in place for rockies...

Works in theory but if practiced could lead to large numbers of dead throwbacks.  The faster they get their limit and off the water the fewer fish that get killed from trying to score a legal limit.  Its just the nature of bottomfishing.

 I respect the fact that many of you only kept a few rockfish. I saw a power boat fishing near me a few weeks ago, and the four guys on board were keeping EVERYTHING...it was pitiful how small these rockfish were, and it makes me think whether size limits should be put in place for rockies...

Works in theory but if practiced could lead to large numbers of dead throwbacks.  The faster they get their limit and off the water the fewer fish that get killed from trying to score a legal limit.  Its just the nature of bottomfishing.

True...what about fishing in shallower water...I see a lot of pics of rockies with their eyes bugging out. Maybe 80 feet or less??? How deep do you guys bottom-fish? The deepest I go is usually about 40' I think (I don't have a depth finder).

The remote areas where we really slay them have fish that average 4x the size of areas that get more fishing pressure.  A 3 fish limit in santa cruz would make 1 meal for 2 skinny (non-filipino) people.   Some rockfish, like gophers, black and yellows, chinas, ect, don't get past panfish size.  

I only got my FF a year ago, and noticed no difference in my catches.  It was even broken in big sur and I did great.  IME, people that haven't used them think they're a lingcod seeking JDAM or something, when all they do is tell you the depth and a bit about the bottom.  Might as well say it's unsporting to read the weather reports before going, or the tide tables, or whatnot.  Consulting a sol-lunar table?  Heathens!  Heck, I can get the same data off a nautical chart, or heaven forbid my GPS.

Blaming FFs for fishery crashes is like blaming On-star systems for global warming.

My FF may still be whack this weekend since I can't test if my repairs were successful at home, but I'm sure I'll have an effective day on the water regardless.

I will make sure to take more pictures of me with an empty stringer and the FF in the back, happens to me all the time.  

I respect your opinion but really just because you didn't have it when you started fishing does not mean it is bad, why don't we go back to dugouts and handlines then. No VHF, No GPS, hand carved wood paddles, no wetsuites, no pfds, forget hauling yur dugout on your car, that is too modern and you should only be able to fish if you live right on the beach. Get that heater out of your house while your at it and use only natural fibers.  

I will make sure to take more pictures of me with an empty stringer and the FF in the back, happens to me all the time.  

I respect your opinion but really just because you didn't have it when you started fishing does not mean it is bad, why don't we go back to dugouts and handlines then. No VHF, No GPS, hand carved wood paddles, no wetsuites, no pfds, forget hauling yur dugout on your car, that is too modern and you should only be able to fish if you live right on the beach. Get that heater out of your house while your at it and use only natural fibers.  

I agree with Bill......I do admire and respect the "old school" ways.....but just because I admire and respect the old school ways, it does not mean I have to re-live it .......I do like having the safety features of what the modern world can provide.....

..just my 2 cents....