Option B

Ok guys.  I drove down to Los Alamitos for the Marine Resource Committee meeting yesterday and met with the commissioners before the meeting to discuss the proposed changes.  I’ve got to tell you, these commissioners do not believe that the fishery is healthy.  In fact when I said that the fishery is healthy, one of them looked at me like I was crazy.  It is because of this that they are going to be as conservative as possible in the upcoming emergency action ruling on December 7th.  There was no way I was going to get them to agree to only hit us with one deduction but there is good news.  During the MRC meeting I asked the commissioners if they would consider an alternative option that has the same result but that divers would support and they agreed.

This means that I have one week to come up with an alternative way to reduce take by 25% that the department agrees will work, that the wardens will agree is enforceable, and that divers will support.  If we can come up with another option by November 22nd that the department signs off on, then I will have one week to demonstrate public support for the option.  It’s going to be simple e-mails again, “I support option B.” It won’t have to be elaborate or meet any criteria. It just has to demonstrate a significant amount of support for the option.  We will only have one week to show support for the option.  The commission will have to announce that another option is being considered no less than five days before the ruling on December 7th.

As it stands, the department wants to go to 9 per year and close November.  I can get us back up to 12 per year if we’re willing to also close April.  What we need to do right now is brainstorm.
 
How are we willing to reduce take in order to preserve as much of our limits as possible?
 
I have about 24 hours to present our ideas to the department in order to give them time to research what credit we will get for each suggestion.  These options have to be extremely simple, preferably something they already use in management.  Remember, right now we are only brainstorming.  I’ll run these by the department and see what they might accept tomorrow and by Tuesday I’ll know what percent they anticipate we would gain by using these alternatives.  At that time, I’ll come up with a proposal to see if divers would support the option.  We would have 24 hours at best to deliberate this proposal and make changes before I need to give it to the department as “our option” and then we have one week to show support for this option.
 
Josh Russo

Crazy!

Thank you for all your efforts Josh, and please keep us posted when the option B is decided upon so we can email our support...

I will post up if I think of any good options today....

 

Sincerely,

Jim

I would def support 12 a year with April closed over 9 a year with November closed...

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Crazy!

Thank you for all your efforts Josh, and please keep us posted when the option B is decided upon so we can email our support...



 

Sincerely,

Jim

+1

Crazy!

Thank you for all your efforts Josh, and please keep us posted when the option B is decided upon so we can email our support...



 

Sincerely,

Jim

+1

+2

I know DFW and everyone else likes simple and straightforward.

So close April and November and have an annual limit of 12 with a daily limit of 3. With a sunset date of 2 years max, then a reset to the current regs, unless more (and improved) data has been collected to the contrary.

Closing Nov takes some of the lowest tides out of the equation, not good for pickers but a Nov. closing looks like a done deal in any option.

I saw post about daily limits of 2 but never saw any backup to those claims.

Thanks for your efforts, unfortunately the commissioners can only go on the data presented, no matter how skewed it may be. 

The department has submitted their paperwork.  There wasn’t enough time and staff on their end to work in more options.  They did include a third option though but only because I pointed out to them that in their original presentation there was an option to go to 12 per year if we gave up April and November that had a similar percentage as their proposal.  Because it was already in their proposal they were able to add it as an option.  If you guys don’t want 9 per year, you have to write in to support this option.  They are calling it the “fishermen’s proposal” and it won’t pass without support.
The best place to send letters is to:
The Commission at: [email protected]
Or to Ian Taniguchi at: [email protected]

Next: The department is going to work next year to come up with something less painful for us.  This means, all the suggestions that you guys had this morning could be considered for that proposal since we have more time to work on it.  This process will start in February and be voted on in October or December for the 2018 season.  Watermen’s Alliance is hosting a meeting on December 3rd at the CV Starr Center in Fort Bragg from Noon to 4 to discuss the emergency decision, and what divers want from the next proposal and the FMP. 

Thank you everyone for your support over the last week or so,
Josh

Email sent.

Thanks again Josh.

Sincerely,

Jim

Here is what I sent:

From: Jim Russell <[email protected]>
Date: November 16, 2016 at 1:47:00 PM PST
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Subject: Support for "fishermen's proposal" for Red Abalone

I am writing to express my support for the "fishermen's proposal" for Red Abalone which would allow for the take of 12 abalone per year (and the closure of the months of April and November).

I do NOT support reducing the Total Allowable Catch to 9 per year.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need any additional information.

Sincerely,
Jim Russell
3 Via Ventana Ct.
Watsonville, CA
95076

Josh again thanks both for your active work (plus driving) and especially for prodding all of the rest of us to act. I have written two letters.

Again, why not try the 1 day ab license? See how much that reduces the number of tags (allowable take) as a first step. That might get us close to the 25% reduction. Think of all the guys at VanDamme that come up do a group camp thing with other families the same time every year, then go back to Sacto or wherever and never use the other 15 tags. It's a real reduction; why not have DFG try it a year. And, I know I'm a broken record, but let people buy in increments of 3. If guys who only are going to get six, buy just six tags, that's a real and MOST IMPORTANTLY IT'S A VOLUNTARY reduction and doesn't penalize people who want to dive more.

On shorter season, keep November PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. Axe April if you have too. Sometimes late fall can be the most beautiful diving of the entire season.

I may be wrong, but I don't think they evaluate TAC in the way you indicate.  Since everybody is required to report their actual catch at the end of each season, they can get closer to the actual number of abalone taken than just multiplying the number of ab cards sold by the number of tags per card (currently 18). 

Yes, some people don't properly submit their actual catch totals for the year.  But, even for that I don't think they just assume a full 18 were taken.  There are some assumptions and averages used to model it.

So, I'm not sure how a 1 day ab card or a reduced tag ab card would have an impact on the TAC in your example.  Whether somebody takes 3 abs on a 1 day card or 3 abs on a full season card, it still results in just 3 abs at the end of the season when the counts are done.

Josh again thanks both for your active work (plus driving) and especially for prodding all of the rest of us to act. I have written two letters.

Again, why not try the 1 day ab license? See how much that reduces the number of tags (allowable take) as a first step. That might get us close to the 25% reduction. Think of all the guys at VanDamme that come up do a group camp thing with other families the same time every year, then go back to Sacto or wherever and never use the other 15 tags. It's a real reduction; why not have DFG try it a year. And, I know I'm a broken record, but let people buy in increments of 3. If guys who only are going to get six, buy just six tags, that's a real and MOST IMPORTANTLY IT'S A VOLUNTARY reduction and doesn't penalize people who want to dive more.

On shorter season, keep November PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE. Axe April if you have too. Sometimes late fall can be the most beautiful diving of the entire season.

It's a good suggestion for the meeting on December 3rd.  The emergency action is a hasty, what do we do right now?  At the meeting on December 3rd, we will discuss the short comings of the current plan and this emergency action, what we would rather do and if we can replace the emergency action with something better until the new FMP comes into play, but most importantly what we want from the next management plan. 

How do people feel about increasing size limit? Does the department have data on size and not just number? Ice seen many abs a little over seven inches be taken and everywhere I dive, but the larger ones are not as common. I feel like I could dive in the same area and get 18 legal abs easily because getting a 7 incher is easy, they don't run away that fast and are not deep. Filling your tags is not a challenge. It's not really fishing or hunting, it's getting. If the size limit was increased, it would be more challenging and I would not be getting three a day.

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I don't know why the abs are in such danger,these last few years I've seen the number of diver/pickers in the area that I go to decrease by almost 75%.on average I get 3 dives if I'm lucky and average 9 abs a season.all this gonna do is drive the black market thru the roof.

How do people feel about increasing size limit? Does the department have data on size and not just number? Ice seen many abs a little over seven inches be taken and everywhere I dive, but the larger ones are not as common. I feel like I could dive in the same area and get 18 legal abs easily because getting a 7 incher is easy, they don't run away that fast and are not deep. Filling your tags is not a challenge. It's not really fishing or hunting, it's getting. If the size limit was increased, it would be more challenging and I would not be getting three a day.

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This.... change the minimum size limit to 8.5 or 9 inches.