The California Fish and Game Commission will meet in Eureka on December 7th and 8th and decide the future for public access to nearshore fish. At issue is the delectable flesh of the rockfish species, Sebastes. They are commonly known as reds, blues, black rockcod, etc. Also at stake are lingcod and cabezon.

The Pacific Fishery Management Council has declared all rockfish to be "overfished," setting into motion a planning process to rebuild the stocks. Commercial trawlers, with nets that dredge the rocky bottom, have altered the landscape of the sea floor and bear the primary responsibility for the fisheries decline. The trawl fleet has been under increasing restrictions, and currently they will be limited to 44 metric tons, including by-catch. In 1988, a new commercial fishery was introduced on the West Coast: a skiff fisherman with 4 fishing poles could buy a license for $50 and catch rockfish, keep them in a holding tank, and sell them for $3-$10 per pound to Asian fish markets in the city. These commercials fish in shallow water, and the type of gear they use has evolved from hook and line, to "sticks" (weighted long-lines with many hooks) and finally, they are fishing directly in the kelp beds with traps. These converted lobster traps are about 3 feet across and attached to a float. They're constantly tended and the fish are transferred to livewells, unloaded to small stepvans in the evening, and transported to Asian fish markets and restaurants in the city. The fishermen can get anywhere from $3 to $10 per pound for the fish, depending on the size, species and grade of fish. The markets prefer smaller fish that will fit on a plate. The live rockfish market is sending a message to the whole commercial groundfishing industry: you have been sending stale product to the market. Why not focus on quality over quantity?

I support commercial fishing, and to be honest, I bought live rock cod at a favorite Chinese restaurant in San Francisco. I didn't pick it out of a tank, but I still remember how good that fish was in black bean sauce. I love my fresh caught fish and almost never order fish in restaurants and I can't stand to look at the stuff they sell in supermarkets, so it must have been really fresh fish, as in: live. So I'll admit I am a contributor to commercials and the good price for live fish.

I can sympathize with the commercials, but this commercial live rockfishing is a real problem here in Fort Bragg, and it's too intensive for the resource - visibly. I'm getting the impression that folks outside this area aren't aware of what's been going on.

On October 27, after I had heard about the proposed cuts in sportfishing, I took my lunch break at the point overlooking Noyo Cove today in Fort Bragg. There were five commercial boats inside the cove - and working 40-50 traps in the kelp beds. It's a kelp area of about the same size as a football field. These traps work areas that have never been fished by sportfishers because the hook and line will get tangled in the kelp.

A friend and I fished hard this past Sunday, all along the shallow water between Noyo Harbor and the Lighthouse at Point Cabrillo. It's a seven mile stretch of dead water. We searched for likely spots, keeping a watch on the sonar fishfinder, but we didn't mark any fish, because it's virtually a desert. We ended up with four rockfish after five hours of fishing. And it's dead up to Cleone Reef seven miles north of Fort Bragg. Westport, 12 miles north, used to be known for its wide-open bottomfishing. No more. There's been a drastic change in the last few years, as the Department of Fish and Game has looked on. It's so blatantly culled out from Mendocino to Westport, you know it's not a "cyclical" thing or seals or pollution - none of these problems take only legal-sized lings. Both commercials and sportfishers will agree that the DFG has mismanaged the rockfish resource.

I' ve been discussing this with my sportfishing friends for a long time. Aside from the locals here in Fort Bragg, I belong to a wider group of people who fish the Albion and Noyo areas.

They come from as far away as Colorado and Arizona to fish here in the summer on a three-day weekend. The size and composition of the group varies from year to year but we have about 50 people on average. Only a few people actually catch fish and they feed the rest at the campsite. Together, we represent something like 350 years of mixed collective experience on the water. So far, everybody has saying that the decline in rockfishing coincides with live commercials, and they can't support cuts in recreational fishing until that's addressed. The PFMC had proposed cutting the season as much as six months a year for recreationals with a three fish bag limit. This would have killed the recreational industry, which contributes far more to the California economy than does the commercial fishing industry. A massive grassroots letter-writing campaign erupted out of nowhere and in a few days the PFMC received 1500 letters from recreational fishers who have already given up a 30% cut last year although they have not contributed to the decline. The PFMC backed off and adopted tighter restrictions on the commercial fishery. Currently, there are several online discussion groups for people dedicated to the preservation of public access to the nearshore ocean:

http://www.egroups.com/group/CAnearshore (commercials, recreationals, and DFG reps)

A conservation group, the United Anglers of Southern California, with the support of other groups such as the Recreational Fishing Alliance, has developed an important proposal to contend with the commercial live rockfish problem: restricting commercial gear to rod and reel, and eliminating the fish traps. The UA proposal has been placed on the agenda for the next meeting of the California DFG Commission meeting, no small victory in itself. The meeting is to be held in Eureka on December 7 & 8, 2000.