Demonstrating Effectiveness of Avoidance and Use of Descending Devices Could Positively Affect Future Regulations
If California saltwater anglers and the recreational fishing industry take immediate steps to avoid catching and/or keeping copper and quillback rockfish, it could help prevent tougher overall rockfish restrictions anticipated for 2023/2024.
As reported during the April 2022 meeting of the federal Pacific Fisheries Management Council (PFMC), anglers and the party-boat fleet are facing serious depth restrictions and season length reductions in 2023/24, based on recent stock assessments of copper and quillback rockfish.
Following this meeting, a series of discussions were held where the Sportfishing Association of California (SAC) Board of Directors (which represent the party-boat fleet), captains, regulators and other outside organizations. This resulted in a plan to positively influence the situation by reducing take of copper and quillback rockfish now. The goal is for the results of this voluntary catch reduction effort to be incorporated into the decision making process for mid-season regulations changes slated for early 2023.
“We recognize the importance of taking immediate action,” said Wayne Kotow, executive director of the Coastal Conservation Association of California. “If the Southern California angling community can prove our ability to avoid catching these rockfish species—while safely releasing incidental catches with descending devices—we can potentially avoid tougher, more general restrictions down the road. To succeed, this will need to be a combined effort of the sportfishing fleet and private boat anglers.”
SAC has already requested that commercial passenger fishing vessels (party boats) voluntarily and immediately take steps to stop catching copper and quillback rockfish. (Current bag limit on these species is one fish.) These recommended steps include avoiding areas where copper or quillback fish are encountered, and the use of a six-foot break away to the sinker to keep the hook(s) higher in the water column. This is important, as data from various hook-and-line surveys indicates that copper rockfish stay close to the bottom and are typically caught on the hooks closest to the sea floor. SAC’s communications with the party-boat fleet also stresses the use of descending devices to quickly return both species to the depths.
While completely voluntary, many boats in the party-boat fleet are already taking these steps, and are recording the release of both species and the use of descending devices in their logbooks. SAC intends to present the log-book data at the June 2022 PFMC meeting with the goal of demonstrating that anglers can largely avoid these fish and successfully release them if caught.
“Private boat anglers can use these same strategies to avoid taking these rockfish species,” added Kotow. “The angling community needs to prove that we can be part of the solution, and that overly restrictive measures such as depth or season closures aren’t necessary every time we are faced with reduced stock assessments of certain fish species. We believe this will go a long way towards that goal.”
