Last Chance For Rockfish And Lings This Season In The Monterey Area   By: Dan Bacher November 6, 2007 More Articles by Dan

If you want to catch rockfish in 2007, you don’t have much time left, since the rockfish season along the Central California Coast below Pigeon Point closes to fishing after November 30. The PFMC closed the season along the California coast from Pigeon Point to the Oregon border two months early on September, based on highly suspect data claiming that recreational anglers had gone over their allowable take of goldeneye and canary rockfish.

The fishing in the Monterey Bay area remains superb, with charter boat anglers reporting regular limits of assorted rockfish. “Rockfish action has been very good,” said Brian Cutter, captain of the Sur Randy out of Randy’s Fishing Trips. “We’re limiting out every day, although some days we have to work harder than others. When we are able to get down the coast to Big Sur, the fishing has been phenomenal.”

For example, 8 anglers on a recent trip down to the Big Sur Coast landed limits of rockfish and two lingcod to 7 pounds. “The rockfish were all huge olives in the 4 to 5 pound range, with the exception of one blue rockfish and 7 vermilion rockfish,” said Cutter.

The local reefs are also yielding a mixture of yellowtail, blue, widow, and starry, vermilion and other rockfish averaging 2 to 3 pounds. “Anglers are hooking the larger fish on hardware such as Mega Baits and Kings Tackle Jigs in the scrambled eggs and orange/bronze colors, but anglers are also catching plenty of rockfish on shrimp flies,” said Cutting.

“Anglers aboard the Caroline, Star of Monterey and Checkmate have been catching big, beautiful copper, olive and vermilion rockfish lately,” reported Todd Arcoleo of Chris’ Fishing Trips. “We’re also seeing more lingcod, about a half dozen legal lingcod most trips.”

Big fish honors go to Ed Blaylock of San Jose, who bagged two lingcod in the 12 lb. class.

The Monterey charter boats will fish rockfish through November 30 and then begin booking crab/sanddab combos when the crab season opens on November 3. Anglers will be fishing for the tasty Pacific and Spanish mackerel during the sand crab ventures and trying for tackle-busting Humboldt squid when they show in local waters.

Meanwhile, a new series of 29 marine protected areas (MPAs), from San Mateo County to Santa Barbara County went into effect under the Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) on September 21.

Cutting advised anglers to carefully review the map of the new MPAs to make sure they don’t fish in closed zones along the Central Coast, since some spots that anglers traditionally fished, including sections of the Point Sur, Carmel Highlands and Yankee Point areas, are now closed to fishing.

For more information, visit the DFG MLPA Web page at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/mlpa and review the MPA maps before going fishing.

In a complete slap in the faces of recreational anglers and commercial fishermen, the DFG and Governor's staff held a ceremony on September 20 “celebrating” the imposition of no fishing zones along the Central Coast.

Secretary for Resources Mike Chrisman, Acting Department of Fish and Game (DFG) Director John McCamman, MLPA Blue Ribbon Task Force Chair Susan Golding, and members of the California Fish and Game Commission, including Commission President Richard Rogers, spoke at the “celebration” at the Point Lobos State Reserve in Carmel, exhalting the glories of the MPAs.

The DFG’s high-speed catamaran, the Marlin, and two other boats provided media tours of the nearby MPA research sites following the event.  

“These new marine protected areas will help us preserve some of California’s most biologically significant marine habitats while also allowing for recreational and commercial fishing,” gushed Chrisman, who noted that the central coast is the first of five regions that will eventually lead to a network of MPAs along the state’s 1,100-mile coastline.

Fortunately, a group of 10 fisher folks, including Jim Martin, West Coast Regional of the Recreational Fishing Alliance, and Kathy Fosmark, PFMC member and co-chair of the Alliance of Communities for Sustainable Fisheries, “crashed the party.”

More anglers would have been there, but the DFG office didn’t release the information about the “celebration” until 24 hours before the event so they could keep the public out. The fishermen held up picket signs with slogans including “State of California Throws Fishermen Under the Bus” and “California’s MPAs: the Emperor has no clothes.”

“A small group of fishermen crashed the party and spoke to the press about the way the Governor ignored the interests of the people in the so-called ‘public’ MLPA process,” recounted Martin. “For example, Tom Hafer spoke to a TV reporter about his experience as a member of the regional stakeholder group in central California. He said the fishermen brought forward a better proposal than the one in effect now, and how the fishermen were marginalized in the process.”

“In fact, when this small group of fishermen showed up at the ‘Celebration,’ they were told they could not join the main group and had to stand off to the side,” said Martin.

So much for the inclusion of the “stakeholders” in this process!

This final network of Central Coast MPAs is the result of a vote in April by the California Fish and Game Commission. It represents the culmination of a controversial two-year public process beginning in February 2005 in which the input of recreational anglers, commercial fishermen and Indian Tribes was disregarded in order to fast track a process by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to shut down fishing in as many areas as possible along the Central Coast.

“The MLPA process was invigorated as a public-private partnership with the Resources Agency, the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, the California Marine Life Protection Act Initiative, DFG and the Commission,” claimed the DFG in a press release.

What this political fluff translates to is: a private organization, the Resources Legacy Fund Foundation, in a blatant conflict of interest, kicked in the money to support the creation of no fishing zones. This was done in spite of the fact that de-facto MPAs closing fishing along the entire Continental Shelf had already been imposed, along with seasonal closures.

The network of marine protected areas include: 15 State Marine Conservation Areas (SMCA), which limit recreational and commercial fishing; 13 “no-take” State Marine Reserves (SMR); one State Marine Recreational Managed Area (SMRMA); and the Morro Bay State Marine Recreational Management Area, where recreational fishing is limited or restricted.

“DFG’s marine wardens will patrol and enforce the new MPAs, and continue to monitor fishing activities in other open areas of state waters (shore to 3 miles),” warned the DFG, even though the Department is financially strapped, understaffed and unable to enforce the existing fish and game regulations.

Many kudos go to Martin, Fosmark, Hafer and others who showed up to protest the blatant unfairness of the corrupt, privately funded MPA process fast-tracked by Governor Schwarzenegger!     

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