# 51047: Subject: Pacific,

Submitted by Capt.Smitty (ip 63.205.186.95)

• Fished on 1/11/2004

• Report received: 1/14/04

Water Temperature: .
Water Clarity: dark
Seas: Calm
Weather: Light easterlie
Fishing_for: Rock fish & Ling cod
Boat: Riptide
captain: Capt. Smitty

Report:
Ahoy there one and all!

Here is hoping that everyone has had a healthy and happy holiday season!

We are looking forward to the 2004 year with great expectations!

Both the Whale Watching and Fishingshould bring great opportunities for you to enjoy the beautiful Pacific ocean

The rock fishing season has opened with the added benefit of fishing in deeper waters!

We can fish part of the year out to 30 fathoms (180 feet). This came from a lot of hard work and

at the PFMC meetings. As many of you know I attend many of

these meetings to try and represent your interests in keeping the ocean

open to fishing. There were many heated discussions and wide ranging perspectives at these meetings.

It is difficult to try to work within the science that is available for use to the PFMC

Committees. There is a mandate that they have to use the “best available

Data” even when acknowledging that the best available data does not represent what is

going on in the real world. I think of it as the world of paper fish. Data

collection methods are undergoing a change this year and hopefully it

will be more representative of the real world of the ocean.

As a result of the Council’s decision to push everyone in on the beach this past year

they are afraid of having a larger impact on these nearshore species. But

there is no available data showing what this will be. So without good data available,

they guess as to which species were caught and then try to build upon it.

This is one of the reasons they wanted to let us fish in deeper water to allow more opportunity for the fisherman.

But there is still the constraint of the protected species (canary, yellow eye, etc)

as well as the “Near Near shore” species. So there will hopefully be more

opportunities in 04. But, that depends on the stock assessments which we

have not seen yet. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and Hope for the best.

Well, on to real fishing! We had a private charter on Sunday to the Farallone

Islands for rock fishing. Since the season is opened out to 30 fathoms

(180 feet) I wanted to try fishing in areas that have been closed. I

found a little spot that I had all but forgotten. It started at 170 feet

and the peak came up to 155 and then dropped off to 180 before the bottom

turned soft. Seeing these fish in my new meter was a delight for me!

My new meter is so much more sensitive than my old one I was really

impressed! And apparently it did not lie - as the customers let their lines

down they were all stopped by some whopper yellows! Everyone was pumping

on their rods and reels working these fish back up. I tried throwing a

bar and was successful in getting through the schoolies. Shoot, I thought

I hung the bottom till the rod started the hard slow pumps. Ahhh, a

toothy one! Working it up to the surface and gaffing a nice 14 pound ling

cod! So I put down the rod and continued to help the passengers take off the fish so they could get

back down. Let me tell you, I was sweating and I was just helping. After

a few more drifts we started counting and keeping track of the different

species. When we finished we started towards home while the deck hand got

out his knife and started filleting.

When all was said and done we had 15 limits of rock fish and keeper

lings. Since the weather was so calm the ride home was great and half the people

were sleeping after wearing themselves out catching those nice fish!

So you will excuse me now so I can go and help my self to a plate of FRESH

Brownies!

Bon appetite!

Smitty

To add a remark to this report click here.