The Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC) met in Foster City this week and voted on Thursday to allow fishing for rockfish out to 30 fathoms starting on September 1, 2003. While this is a welcome change for a recreational fishing industry that has suffered from eight months of total closure, it is much less than was expected. The ‘fly in the ointment’ was a late report from California Department of Fish & Game that indicated that a small amount of ‘canary’ rockfish, an overfished rockfish species that had
not appeared in catches south of Point Conception previously, was now assumed to have been caught to the south. As canary rockfish was preventing easing of the restrictions to the north, the Council felt that it had to control catches south. The skippers I talked to indicated that the only canary they had ever seen were in a small area near San Miguel Island and northwest of San Nicholas Island, two areas that were now off-limits, either because of the Cow Cod Closure or because the area was within the marine reserve network of the northern Channel Islands.

The other complication is the fact that the 2003 quota for bocaccio is a total impact of less than 20 tons. Even though the new stock assessment for bocaccio indicates that the stock is “much” more abundant and will result in a 2004 quota of over 300 tons, some Council members, mainly from Oregon and Washington, were reluctant to modify the quota in-season, as it could set a precedent that might allow other stock assessments to force reductions in quotas for other stocks in-season. The widow rockfish is a species that falls in that category, as a recent stock assessment showed reduced abundance, and widows are taken as bycatch in the important whiting midwater trawl fishery, mostly in the northern California, Oregon and Washington area.

Finally, the Council will begin a two meeting process this week to adopt the 2004 rockfish regulations. Options will be identified this week and the final regulations will be set at the PFMC meeting in Seattle in September. As the expected quota for bocaccio (known as the optimum yield or OY) will be near 300 tons, we can assume a much more robust season, both in time and area, will be adopted. While there are always surprises, SAC will be working to make sure that the most reasonable season possible within the constraints of rebuilding an overfished stock is adopted. Stay tuned.