ODFW news release: Com'n Adopts 2003 Seasons

[Pete]

For Immediate Release Friday, December 13, 2002

Commission Adopts 2003 Groundfish, Halibut and Sardine Fishing Seasons and Regulations

EUGENE - The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission Friday adopted sport and commercial rules for 2003 for groundfish, halibut and sardine fishing seasons within state waters that are slightly more restrictive than 2002 regulations. However, the Commission may make harvest reductions in March based on the results of public input.

The rules mimic those adopted by the Pacific Fishery Management Council in November for the area between three and 200 miles off shore. PFMC rules are implemented by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) via federal rules. The decision to limit the harvest was based on an earlier designation by NMFS that canary, yelloweye and darkblotched rockfish are overfished. Commercial harvest of fresh and live rockfish, cabezon and greenling has increased in recent years due to market demand. Complicating matters is the lack of biological data on many groundfish species, some of which have life spans up to 100 years and older.

The Commission is the rule-making body for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The Commission adopted Friday a 2004 commercial and recreational nearshore harvest cap at the level of harvest recorded in the year 2000. The Commission will revisit issues related to nearshore groundfish harvest caps in February, 2003, when the seven-member panel takes public testimony on proposals to reduce harvest levels beyond those adopted Friday. The reduction being considered is to reduce the harvest beyond the year 2000 harvest levels. The Commission aske ODFW staff to review options for a 20 percent reduction from the levels adopted Friday. A decision is expected in March, 2003.

The Commission adopted the following rules:

2003 Sport Groundfish and Halibut Rules:
- Lingcod: Increased the daily bag limit to two fish with a minimum size of 24 inches.
- Other marine finfish: Ten fish daily bag limit (which includes cabezon and greenling), which may include no more than one canary rockfish, one yelloweye rockfish and one halibut 32 inches or longer.
- Cabezon: Minimum size for recreational catches is 15 inches. The Commission intends to increase this to 16 inches for the 2004 season to match the 16-inch commercial minimum size adopted for the 2003 season. The recreational size increase was delayed because the 2003 sport regulation books have been printed.
- Halibut: Must be harvested during authorized seasons. Flexibility was added to pre-season and in-season quota transfers to allow more uniform seasons coast wide. Anglers must harvest the first halibut landed longer than 32 inches. In addition, anglers may not retain yelloweye or canary rockfish during the all-depth Pacific halibut seasons if halibut are on board the vessel.
- Other than halibut, the sport season is Jan. 1 - Dec. 31, 2003.

2003 Commercial Rules:
- Adopted PFMC's rules for trip limits, gear restrictions and fish size limits.
- Fixed-gear must fish deeper than 100 fathoms.
- On-bottom groundfish trawl gear (foot-ropes) are banned from restricted fishing areas during specific time periods. In most months, boats are restricted to trawl outside of 100 to 250 fathoms. In July and August, groundfish may only be harvested outside of 75 and 250 fathoms. Petrale sole harvest is allowed in some designated areas of the restricted area January-February and November-December.
- In mid-year, a federal vessel monitoring system requirement is scheduled to be implemented by the federal government to track vessel activity in restricted areas.
- The harvest of sardines will be limited to110,908 from the California to Washington coasts in 2003 metric tons compared to 118,442 metric tons in 2004. The Oregon sardine fishery has increased drastically since 1999 from 775 metric tons to about 22,700 metric tons in 2002.

[ 12-13-2002, 06:23 PM: Message edited by: Pete ]