Nearshore plan adopted by ODFW

[Pilar]

Thank you all for attending the ODFW commissioners meeting yesterday. The really cool thing is that Ifishers were an easy majority of the people who spoke to the commission during public testimony. Other sportfishers included Joe from the Siggy G of T-bay and Mitchell Buell, also a charterboat operator from T-bay. The hall was full with ~50 in attendance. The changes made today are effective 1/1/03 and will be adjusted under the Developmental fisheries program as necessary to make it work.

The results of 2 hours of reviewing the proposal, getting public feedback and amending the proposed moratorium are;

1) 21 new species of rockfish are now included in the plan. Specifically the Developmental fishery program Species list, category A. So now the Devo program will set harvest levels and try to get more accurate assessments of these species. This includes Cabezon, greenling and the many rockfish.

2) The permits for nearshore commercial fishing will be limited entry with the number of permits reduced from over 100 now to less than 50.

This part of the plan is in several parts

2A Initial permit qualification - in a nutshell this is based on prior involvement in the fishery from 1/1/97 to 7/1/01 and on landing a specific amount of fish. Basically only the boats making substantial catches in that time period would retain their permits. There is much debate about what should qualify the boat but it has been set at 500 lbs a year north of Hecteta head and 750lbs south of it. Thus criteria will limit the initial group of permits at 71.

2B Boats will be restricted by permit to the area they qualified in. 65 boats on the S. Coast and 6 to the north.

2C Further reductions in the fleet size will be had by forcing the permit holders to prove their permits by landing a certain amount of fish every year. As proposed the amount was (5) 100 lb landings of fish, live or dead.

2D No new permits will be issued until the fleet is <50 boats.

2E Gear restrictions include a 50 pot limit. This may go lower though since there is only one pot fisherman, Paul Meyer on the Network in Garibaldi. There were several Tbay fishermen who described the gear conflicts caused by the Network when they leave pots on bottom fish reefs and effectively block the use of those reefs to drifting bottom fishers. This gear conflict is motivating the commision to get a lower limit or elimnate pots as a legal method. Much of the testimony revolved around this one issue and there are no restrictions now.

2F Logbooks and other means will be used to monitor catch and bycatch for all boats working the nearshore. An accurate accounting of the catch is necessary for assessment purposes.

2G Incidental catch of the listed species was amended and lowered to 15 lbs from 25 lbs as proposed, based on the testimony at the meeting. So salmon trollers or anyone else fishing nearshore commercial that do not have a groundfish permit have a very limited bycatch restriction. The existing limit is 300 lbs.

2H Cabezon are now restricted to a length of 16" or greater for commercial fishers and this will soon go for the sport fishers as well. Unfortunately the fishing regs for 2003 are already printed and the change is not in the rulebook.

3) Black Rockfish area restrictions are now reinstated. No commercial fishing for Black Rockfish will be allowed in high recreational use ares. There is a map in the plan but basically much of the north coast and two areas near Bandon and on the Ca. border would be closed to Black Rockfish commercial take.

4) Future measures. Sustainable is the word. The fishery will be managed for sustainable use. Harvest caps will be set and other changes made as more is known about stock sizes and impacts on the stocks by fishing. Funding must be found to start and continue studies of the unknowns.

It was joked in the meeting that 'sustainable biologists' were needed for success of the program.

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If you made it this far thanks for reading. The folks that testified at the meeting had an impact.

Jen (Ifish- Pilar's Mate) made it clear that the size restriction on Cabezon should be conservative until more was learned about abundance and size at sexual maturity. 16 inches not 15 as proposed.

John Holloway (Ifish- Black Magic) urged the commisioners to manage for 2013 not 2003.

Paul Meyer, pot fisherman insisted that his fishing method was environmentally sound.

John Wells (Ifish- Pilar) After thanking the staff and commisioners for their hard work I urged the chairman and the commisioners to manage conservatively and use the Developmental fisheries program to adjust the nearshore program as more was learned. Maybe we can relax restrictions once the health of the population is understood. I pointed out that if the measures were not effective that there would be few of the slow growing fish left to manage. I also asked about the true aim of the program ... reduce the numbers caught ... and asked how that would happen if only the fleet size not the harvest amount was changed.

Richard Oba (Ifish - ?) testified in support of the plan.

Scott Boley urged the commisioners to not restrict permit renewal to allow fisherman to hold a permit for use in hard times. Fish for whatever is good that year and retain a nearshore permit even if unused.

Al Barney, a charterboat skipper in Garibaldi testified in favor of the plan.

Janice Green (Ifish - RFA Janice) testified in favor of the plan and urged the commisioners to manage in a conservative way until they could manage with more precision.

Greg Mc Millen (Ifish - Fishplay) Asked if the permits could be restricted to Oregons fishers only and voiced support of the plan. This went to a discussion on restricting landings of fish caught in Oregon to Oregon ports. Chairman Esler wanted language in the plan added for this but settled for making it a condition of the permit.

Mike Gaynor (Ifish - Capt'n) testified in support of the plan and asked the commisioners to be conservative.

There were others involved in the meeting and if I missed you and what you said, fill us in below.

Finally I want to say thanks to Bill Monroe who also attended for giving this issue some exposure. He stated that 'We should just close it'. I agree with you Bill and I asked the commisioners to do just that during my public testimony.

[ 10-12-2002, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Pilar ]

[Deepslayer]

Thank you for the report Pilar! :smile: And thank all of you who represented those of us who could not be there.
Ed

[OceanBlue]

In a nutshell - we asked for 3 things:

Cabezon minimum size set at the more conservative 16 inches.

That the quota be set below the PFMC set cap of year 2000 levels until more is known

That fish, especially livefish caught in Oregon be landed in Oregon ports.

Commissioner Esler urged all of these. The commission will hear more in March about the cap. Legal counsel indicated that fish caught in Oregon are required to land in Oregon ports. Esler insisted that it be written in as a condition of the permits. The size min for cabezon was written into the interim plan and passed.

So... for all those doubting thomas's out there, one last word - Legal counsel approached me after this agenda item was concluded and told me how exciting it was that we - the recreational fishers - REALLY made a huge difference that day.

Talk about feeling great!

Thanks to all who attended, testified and MADE A DIFFERENCE! And to those who lent their support in the other various ways they could!

A big thanks to all that testified . This is only the begining of your work .
Jen,
Will you email me the addresses for written responses? I am sorry that I had to
leave Friday. It was nice to see a board that was not in the pocket of commercial interests. :smile:

[Capt. Rich]

Part of the discussion, that happened very late after ten hours of meeting, was to adopt the Nearshore plan at all. The chairman wanted to have some of the details worked out before the plan was adopted. But other commissioners reminded the chair that if it were not adopted, that the 2003 season would be run under the 2002 rules. Statutorially the decision had to be made at this meeting.

In a rather quick thumbing through the rules proposed, the commission adopted the nearshore plan. John Wells is far too modest in saying that he attended the meeting. On some of the amendments, he was able to get the ear of the commission to strengthen some of the language.

Overall the Interim Nearshore Plan is a good starting point. But there are a lot of unanswered questions.

1. The nearshore documents have figures that the live fishery has a 90% bycatch rate. But does not identify the bycatch. This bycatch rate is the highest of any commercial fishery. The traditional drag fishery had dramatically reduced their bycatch in the last few years because of regulatory action. Yet the issue of bycatch was not addressed in the adopted rules.

2. The issue of pot fishing hogging a whole reef was not dealt with. The pot fisher claims that his method has less bycatch and is more selective but others raised the issue that they can not fish when he lays pots on a reef. This also leads to the issue of user conflict. If a reef is occupied with stick and pot gear, recreational fishermen would be blocked from any access.

The ODFW staff that was there were obviously burned around the edges from overwork. They complained that there are not enough people interested in serving on the Developmental Fisheries Board. Although this is a commericial fishing commission, there are four recreational spots on the board. It is clear that unless both sport and commercial fisherman show some interest in serving on boards, decisions affecting sport fishermen could be made without any input. If you are interested in serving, please contact Ms. Patty Burke at the Developmental Fisheries Board, Newport, (541) 867-0300 or Patty.M.Burke@state.or.us

[skein]

Thanks ladies and gents. Through you our voices are being heard. I've learned more about how the commission(s) work in the last year than in the 20 before, and most of that is through the effort of folks like Pilar, Pilar's Mate, UglyGreen, Miss B Haven, RFA Janice, and others who (forgive me) I can't think of right now. We owe you a lot and can only pay you back by showing up, reading up, and asking knowledgeable questions and expecting sensible answers.

May warm waters swing close to your shores, and may the swells be wide and even.

Skein