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March 09, 2010    Headlines

Easy Pickin Crabs
2010 Salmon? Maybe!



Peggy Beckett at Half Moon Bay Sport Fishing said they were out on whale watching trips on Sunday 2-28 but with the recent weather and swell, they haven’t been able to muster enough interest for a squid trip. Peggy said there were reports of the sea rising from 16 to 30 inches in response to the tsunami in the Pacific Ocean from the massive earthquake in Chile.
They have a few boats which will take part in the rockfish opener south of Pigeon Point on May 1st while others will be waiting for the season to opener north of Pigeon Point on June 13th. Until then Roger Thomas on the Salty Lady will be running Humboldt squid trips when the weather cooperates.
Private boaters continue to score limits of crab, averaging nearly 6 crab per pot, after longer soaks at depths from 110 to 150 feet. Most boaters are still locating lost pots that have walked the past few weeks. With all of the consistent crabbing this year many anglers have pulled their gear but we should see an up tick in interest during the spring months.

Sheryl Jimno at the Rusty Hook in Pacifica said most fishermen are still working the pier for a few crab, even in the swell and wind. The swells have been intermittent with high surf one day before backing down the next. There are still a few fishermen trying for surf perch.

Sacramento PFMC News
I spent Monday 3-8 in Sacramento at the PFMC meeting. Yes there are more fun things to do but the PFMC meetings can be quite entertaining. The entire day was mostly dedicated to salmon management. For you recreational salmon anglers there was surprisingly good news and there are currently three options on the table that all include a season. Lengthy ones at that. That said the Council is meeting all this week and these options will likely change and continue to be modified later this week and at meetings in Oregon and Washington state later this month and in early April.
The three options range from a full season (April and into at least October) with a 24" min size to a full season minus May and June with a 24" min size.
I left during the last public comment period in the late afternoon. There were many recreational anglers voicing their frustration that they have been locked out of fishing for the past two years and with the current projections of an ocean abundance of 245K kings they deserve a season. I can feel their frustration as fishing is not the reason for the decline of the fishery. They made an excellent showing (my hat goes off to all who took a day off of work and traveled many miles to voice your opinion. ) and it seemed the Council heard their concerns.
Many professional fisherman representing party boats, commercial anglers and guide associations were actually voicing the opposite opinion, that they favored that the Council err on the conservative side and not open the season this year. Their biggest concern is one we highlighted in a story a couple of weeks back, that the jack counts to actual returns have been far lower than projected.
The good news is that there are options to allow fishing this season. The bad news is that projections over the past three years have fallen short by as much as 70%. The other concern is the high impact by recreational anglers on Central Valley winter run stocks that have dropped from over 7000 fish to about 2000 the past year. We will know much more as the meetings progress and will post updates as they are released.
Personally, I'm in the conservation camp and that's coming from a die hard salmon angler. Given the just 30 to 50% return to projections of the past three years I don't feel that we should risk impacting returns this season. Just my .02. Given the past two years of drought and the possibility of El Nino conditions along the coast this year, fishing will only add stress to a fishery in serious decline.
Yes I (and others in the conservation camp) will be thrown under the bus again by others (debate me over coffee but not in some anonymous thread) but I call it like I see it and always have. What I really disagree with is when I read postings by the completely misinformed against groups that have been fighting for our salmon seasons decades. It's important for all angler groups to stay focused on the one goal we all agree on, the recovery of our salmon stocks. No, fishing did not cause this decline but we all have to work together in addressing the real issues (like the 40% increase in water diversions out of the Delta)  not against each other.
We will post updates as news
as it comes in.
Mike


Salmon Surprise or Blue Plate Special?
February 28th

The PFMC announced in February that there could be enough salmon swimming off the coast to allow for an ocean salmon season in 2010. This has taken many in the sportfishing community, including this writer completely by surprise. After we saw the lowest salmon escapement on record last fall that we could return to fishing this year. The PFMC is projecting that 245,000 salmon are currently swimming off the coast. This projection is based on the 9000 jacks that returned in the fall of 2009. The adult fall run escapement goals for the Central Valley are based on a floor of 122,000 and an upper goal of 180,000. If this number is accurate (which is very questionable) then ocean salmon anglers could see a limited season this summer.
After a couple of days to digest the latest numbers I'm a bit of a skeptic that we will see anything close to an actual season or if the fishery can handle any harvest. The reasons are several.
 
One: Being that F&G and the PFMC have (way) over estimated the number of returning salmon the past few years. From an escapement of about 4000 jacks in 2008 they estimated that 122,000 fish would RSVP to spawn this past fall. Only one third or 39,000 actually showed up for the party. This was despite the closure of nearly all the coast for the past two years.
Jacks are used as a predictor of the following year's return. Simply put a "jack" is a two year old (usually male) salmon that is returning a year early. Most salmon spawn as three and (less often) four year olds so when the jack count is high it shows that that particular year class should also be strong. This is just one indicator that fishery biologists use to estimate runs but it holds the highest value. Over the past four years these estimates have been increasingly inaccurate and the recent (four year) trend is that they are grossly over estimated.

Two: How accurate are the numbers? All F&G employees have been furloughed 3 days per month over the past year. (Have you been to DMV lately?) My point being it's hard to do your job and do it well if you don't have the time, budget or manpower to properly complete your responsibilities.
I'm not one prone to conspiracy theories but I lack confidence in the department's numbers. In recent years F&G has been pulling numbers seemingly out of thin air. Remember just four years ago when they estimated that fewer than 10,000 sturgeon were left in the system and the fishery should be severely limited. Or several years ago when they estimated the numbers of rockfish being harvested by counting the number of private boat trailers parked at coastal launches on a particular day and then extrapolate those number out for the entire week. That's not science, it's a wild ass guess or WAG. Counting fish returning to a hatchery is pretty straight forward but how accurate are the numbers when it comes to the fish spawning in the rivers? This to is often based on the WAG.
Many of the prodigy of wild or naturally produced salmon never make it back out to sea. While we are trucking hatchery salmon around the Delta (a short term solution that doesn't address the real problem) most juvenile wild salmon are starving on their out migration through the Delta.

Three: The WAG method that the PFMC uses for fishery management no longer works. We need to build in flexibility into the system to allow in state fishery managers to actually manage these fisheries and be responsible for them. Better put, to open, extend or close the fishery in season due to the numbers of salmon being caught or returning to the river. Such as allowing in-river fishing only when it is apparent that lower escapement goals will be met and increasing harvest when the upper escapement is met and having to answer for your decisions. (This is how Alaska manages their salmon fisheries, with escapement goals and a regional biologist
responsible for increasing harvest when the goals are met and closing a fishery when they fall short).  In short let the feds set guidelines and let the states manage.

Four: What other factors are impacting salmon numbers that are not taken into account? We know that increased water diversion out of the delta is one of the biggest factors of the decline but what about the huge decrease in the numbers of hatchery fish being released the past 7 years? Or the ever increasing numbers of marine mammals, (sealions up over 1000% in the past 30 years), impacts by the increasing numbers of Humboldt squid along the coast the past several years, ocean food production, drought, El Nino, waste water releases, Delta and river water quality?  It's because of these dynamics that we need real time fishery management, not WAGs that set seasons months in advance to live and die by. This would help ensure that enough fish return to seed future runs.

Five: Politics and water, need I say more. We have a governor who wants to build a multi billion dollar water system to send (our) water to his political base in the (desert) south. Worse yet even Senator Feinstein has now proposed to divert more water to farmers by lifting regulations that were put in place to help  salmon fisheries recover. The reality is that if the CV fall run is declared threatened or endangered the courts would eventual intervene and far lass water would be diverted to farmers. That's a lose lose proportion and shows why farmers (you would be surprised at how many do) should support healthy salmon populations.
A better answer is to do away with the junior water right holders in Westlands and stop all subsidized water deliveries (2 million acre feet in 2006) to cotton farmers, many who then in turn collect huge crop subsidies of up to $250K from the Feds. There would be more than enough water to share with southern residents, grow food crops and support our fisheries. Bottom line is that the salmon fishery can not recover until the Delta is healthy again.

The PFMC will be meeting again in March and April and the final salmon season (if any) will be announced. It's the March meeting that will tell us what the options will be. I would hope that all options will be conservative and be designed to ensure the future health of our salmon fishery. We will post updates as additional news in announced at the March and April PFMC meetings.

Be sure to support the groups that are fighting for a sustainable Delta and in turn all of our fisheries that are connected to it.

Mike

fishsite@aol.com


In the Chronicle there was an excellent article posted  "War on Salmon". Cynthia Koehler and Brian Nelson did an excellent job of showing the cause and effect of increased water diversion out of the delta on salmon. Someone may want to drop the Governor a copy.


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