Fall rockfish: regs Big changes and little tricks

JOHN HO with 4 good deep-water mexican rockfish. This species has been uncommon in leisure catches for many years, however with renewed entry to fish deeper waters, plus an obvious large recruitment increase about 4 years again we’re seeing bunches of them within the catch. It’s throwing inventory assessors for a loop. Catching too many is dangerous and catching too few is worse. However marine species are notoriously dynamic – increase and bust – all the time loads of one thing, however seldom the identical one thing. PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN HO

Commercial

BY Benefit McCrea

SACRAMENTO – October 1 the rockfish seasons flopped from shallow solely to deep solely, simply in time for fall’s flat climate days. The CDFW posted the next:

“All through the month of October, boat-based anglers who’re concentrating on rockfish, cabezon and greenling species or lingcod could solely fish in waters seaward of the 50-fathom Rockfish Conservation Space boundary line. Solely shelf rockfish, slope rockfish and lingcod could also be retained, whereas take and possession of nearshore rockfish, cabezon and greenling are prohibited in the course of the offshore solely fishery.

“This offshore solely fishery will stay in impact by the tip of the 12 months for anybody south of 36°00′ N latitude (close to Level Lopez, Monterey County). Nevertheless, for many who fish north of 36°00′ N latitude you should have another alternative to fish inshore of the 20-fathom boundary line in the course of the month of November, earlier than it strikes again offshore December 1, by the tip of the 12 months.

Commercial

“This seasonal change doesn’t apply to divers and shore-based anglers, who will proceed to be exempt from boat-based season restrictions affecting rockfish and different federally managed groundfish. As a reminder, in waters the place groundfish species or species teams are closed, such because the Rockfish Conservation Areas, boat-based anglers could possess groundfish to anchor, drift, or transit in or by that closed space. Moreover, whereas anchoring, drifting or transiting by a closed space with groundfish aboard, anglers could solely deploy gear particular to the take of crustaceans, together with hoop nets, Dungeness crab traps and dip nets.”

What the transit guidelines enable is hoop netting for lobster and crabs, and the place in any other case authorized, the usage of pots/traps for lobster and utilizing a “hand-held dipnet” for squid and different species allowed to be taken with a scoop or hand web.

The important thing right here is after you have rockfish or lingcod on board you could not have hook and line gear within the water in any respect when you find yourself in waters these fish can’t legally be taken. However now you can cease and anchor and fish different gears for crabs, lobster and squid. This was not authorized in closed waters till this 12 months.

The rationale for the closed waters between 20 and 50 fathoms is to keep away from quillback rockfish. Limitations in deep water time mirror the necessity to hold vermilion catches down in order that season lengths might be longer. Longer seasons present larger entry to the opposite rockfish species. It is usually necessary to unfold fishing stress out as broadly as potential inside the out there open waters with out taking too lots of the “constraining species.”

All of the closed areas, regardless of the named depth, are on the premise of point-to-point strains. The 20-fathom strains are in state rules and solely in state waters. This implies in the course of the November inshore-only season that occurs north of Level Lopez, all Federal waters are closed to backside fishing throughout November, even these shallower that 20 fathoms or 120 ft .

The State-Federal boundary is at 3 nautical miles from land besides the place it goes out in deeper waters straight throughout Monterey Bay.

The 50-fathom strains are all in Federal waters. The rule talks about “offshore” or “seaward” of the strains. You might want to be farther from land than that line. There are solely two exceptions the place the strains are drawn round offshore excessive spots – the Cortes and Tanner banks.

All different offshore highspots that aren’t in any other case closed (Cordell, MPAs, the 8 Groundfish Exclusion Areas or GEAs far offshore in SoCal) might be open in the course of the offshore-only season.

This implies the Osborn Financial institution exterior of the MPA at Santa Barbara Island might be open. Nevertheless, not like the inshore season when the deeper water “slope” and “shelf” rockfish have been authorized to have as long as you caught them in shallow waters – for instance reds, in the course of the offshore-only season the “nearshore” rockfish species gained’t be authorized to have in any respect.

“Nearshore Rockfish: (§1.91(a)(1) black, black and yellow, blue, brown, calico, China, copper, gopher, grass, kelp, and olive rockfishes; treefish Cabezon and Greenlings (§28.28 and §28.29)”

Essentially the most difficult of those would be the olive rockfish as a result of it’s usually thought-about the identical as yellowtail rockfish, as many individuals lump them collectively calling them “Johnny bass.”

Throughout the offshore season yellowtail rockfish are keepers whereas olives are unlawful to have. In case you look carefully on the scales, yellowtail have brown flecks on the again edge of every scale. Olives don’t.

There are different variations after all and when you’ve seen a number of of every you possibly can spot the distinction in seconds from throughout the deck – subtly completely different physique and head form, fin and physique coloration.

Right here’s a really useful net addresses:

https://wildlife.ca.gov/Fishing/Ocean/Laws/Groundfish-Abstract

As soon as there you will discover hyperlinks to the boundary line coordinates, rockfish ID footage, prohibited species, all closed areas and their coordinates.

However the backside line for boat-based anglers is go together with an skilled skipper who is aware of their stuff together with the rockfish rules. If you wish to be that man although, dig in, get the numbers and put them in your plotter.

In case you are a tech geographer, know that with just a little digging you will discover pre-built shapes for all as shape-files and kml/kmz and different codecs inside the CDFWs on-line sources. This author hundreds kml recordsdata into Google Earth, builds regional units and copies them out to be used on a pill or mobile phone. They are often opened in apps like MAPinr to be used offshore.