2003 Groundfish Regulations Archives

The Council adopted more conservative groundfish harvest levels (Table 1) and a suite of management measures at its September meeting that moves West Coast Groundfish Fisheries into a new management regime in order to protect overfished groundfish species. These Council decisions were historic in scope considering the breadth of restrictions and the large-scale economic impacts to West Coast fishing communities. Conservative area and season restrictions were adopted to rebuild stocks of bocaccio, canary rockfish, cowcod, darkblotched rockfish, and yelloweye rockfish. West Coast groundfish and non-groundfish fisheries that have a significant bycatch of these species will be dramatically restructured starting next year. The centerpiece of Council actions was the adoption of depth-based restrictions that seasonally move fisheries that catch these overfished stocks out of the depth zones they inhabit. The Council requested an electronic Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) be phased in to the fishery starting next year to track the locations of fishing vessels to ensure compliance with area closures. VMS may be required starting as early as next June on limited entry groundfish fixed gear and trawl vessels. The Council requested a low cost two-way communication VMS system be paid for by the federal government. Gear modifications were also prescribed to reduce bycatch. A description of the management measures adopted for south and north of the Cape Mendocino management line at 40° 10' N. lat. follows.

South of Cape Mendocino

The most severe restrictions will be imposed on fisheries operating in waters off California south of Cape Mendocino mainly to keep from overharvesting bocaccio, but also to give further protection to other overfished rockfish species found on the continental shelf and slope. The Council reacted to advice from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to eliminate as many sources of bocaccio fishing mortality as possible and, in no case, exceed 20 mt of bocaccio fishing mortality in 2003. Therefore, the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG) proposed and the Council adopted the California Rockfish Conservation Area (see the following section) which limits the fishing gears used seasonally in the 20-150 fathom (fm) depth zone from the U.S.-Mexico border north to Cape Mendocino. Recreational groundfish fisheries and directed line and trap fisheries in limited entry and open access will be limited to depths of 0-20 fm or offshore a specified management line (defined by latitude and longitude waypoints) that roughly follows the 150 fm contour.

A significant recreational and commercial effort shift is anticipated into shallow waters inshore of 20 fathoms. The Council and CDFG are concerned that greater fishing pressure on nearshore rockfish stocks may not be sustainable without greater precautionary adjustments. Therefore, recreational and commercial harvest guidelines were adopted for rockfish species caught in shallow waters (Table 2). The minor nearshore rockfish group (genus Sebastes) was partitioned into two groups: those that inhabit the 0-20 fm depth zone year round (shallow nearshore rockfish group) and those that seasonally migrate into this depth zone (deeper nearshore rockfish group). Recreational and commercial opportunity to access the deeper nearshore rockfish group depends on a summer and fall season when these species are found in the open shallow depth zone shoreward of 20 fm.

The recreational season for nearshore rockfish is July through December with a 10 fish nearshore groundfish bag limit. This recreational bag limit is further restricted to no more than 10 rockfish, with only 2 rockfish from the shallow nearshore group, 2 greenlings, and 3 cabezon. The recreational season for California scorpionfish is January-February and July-December with a 5 fish bag limit. Fishing for California scorpionfish will also be limited to waters shallower than 20 fm except for the Huntington Flats area where access to spawning aggregations of this species will be allowed in the 0-50 fm zone south of Point Fermin to the Newport south jetty. Two lingcod with a 24 inch minimum size are also allowed per day during the open July-December recreational groundfish season. Retention of bocaccio, canary rockfish, cowcod, and yelloweye rockfish south of Cape Mendocino will not be allowed next year.

Limited entry trawl and exempt trawl fisheries using small footropes less than eight inches in diameter will be allowed in the narrow zone outside 3 nautical miles (nm) and shoreward of the 50 fm contour during January and February and shoreward of the 60 fm contour during March-December north of Point Conception. Small footrope trawls may be used shoreward of the 100 fm contour to 3 nm offshore along the mainland coast south of Point Conception. This opportunity does not include the offshore islands or the Cowcod Conservation Area. Gear exemptions to the CRCA are described in the following section and apply for the entire coast south of Cape Mendocino. Otherwise, trawl fisheries will be restricted to outside the 150 fm management line south of Point Reyes at 38° N. lat. Trawls will be restricted to outside the 250 fm line north of Point Reyes in order to protect darkblotched rockfish. This deeper-water line will be modified slightly to incorporate some petrale sole fishing grounds shallower than 250 fm during periods 1 (January-February) and 6 (November-December). In no cases will this line be specified for any depths less than 150 fm. The CDFG is expected to provide the latitude/longitude waypoints for the 50, 60, 100 (south of Point Conception), 150, and 250 fm lines to the NMFS by mid-October this year. Limited entry groundfish trawl trip and landing limits adopted by the Council for next year are shown in Table 3. The California Fish and Game Commission is expected to either close their spot prawn trawl fishery next year or limit it to waters deeper than 150 fm to minimize bocaccio bycatch.

The open access and limited entry fixed gear sectors will also be restricted within the 20-150 fm depth zone south of Cape Mendocino. Nearshore management of these fisheries will target the commercial harvest guideline in Table 2 for the same species groups as the recreational fishery. Access to California scorpionfish will be allowed coastwide in waters shallower than 20 fm during May-August and out to 50 fm on Huntington Flats in the area described for the recreational fishery during July-August. The limited entry and open access trip and landing limits are displayed in Table 4 and Table 5, respectively. The pink shrimp trawl fishery will also be required to use finfish excluders next year. The groundfish trip and landing limits for the pink shrimp fishery are included in Table 5.

Back to Top of Page

North of Cape Mendocino

Shelf fisheries north of Cape Mendocino will be constrained by the need to rebuild canary and yelloweye rockfish. The limited entry trawl fishery will be constrained on the shelf by these same species and on the slope by the need to rebuild darkblotched rockfish.

Recreational fisheries in California north of Cape Mendocino and in Oregon will be managed in nearshore areas with the harvest guidelines for nearshore rockfish species depicted in Table 2. California will continue the practice of linking most of their recreational groundfish regulations north of Cape Mendocino with those in Oregon. No depth restriction or season restrictions will be imposed on the California and Oregon recreational groundfish fisheries north of Cape Mendocino except these fisheries will close inseason outside 27 fm if the canary or yelloweye rockfish harvest guideline is reached. The California fishery north of Cape Mendocino will have a daily bag limit of 10 rockfish with a sublimit of 1 canary rockfish and 1 yelloweye rockfish. Additionally, 2 lingcod with a 24 inch minimum size limit, 10 cabezon with a 15 inch minimum size limit, and 10 greenling are allowed with an overall 20 fish limit as part of the daily bag limit in California north of Cape Mendocino.

The Oregon recreational groundfish fishery will have a daily bag limit of ten marine fish excluding lingcod, salmon, tuna, surfperch, sanddab, and bait fish (herring, anchovy, smelt, and sardine). Sublimits of 1 canary rockfish, 1 yelloweye rockfish, and, when open, the first Pacific halibut taken 32 inches or longer are included in the 10 marine fish bag limit. Retention of canary and yelloweye rockfish will be prohibited during the all-depth Pacific halibut fishery in Oregon. Oregon will allow a daily bag limit of 2 lingcod with a 24 inch minimum size limit.

The recreational groundfish fishery in Washington will be managed under a 15 groundfish daily bag limit including rockfish and lingcod. Sublimits within this daily bag are 10 rockfish in aggregate, 1 canary rockfish, 0 yelloweye rockfish, and 2 lingcod with a 24 inch minimum size limit. The recreational season will be open year round except for lingcod, which will be open March 16-October 15. Washington will close recreational fishing for groundfish and Pacific halibut within a prescribed Yelloweye Conservation Area off the North Coast. This area will be extended from the area used in 2002 management. Latitude/longitude waypoints will be provided soon by the WDFW. WDFW personnel will continue their observer program by sending observers on Pacific halibut charters as well as continue an angler interview program to collect discard information. If the fishery is projected to exceed the Washington subarea yelloweye rockfish harvest guideline, the recreational Pacific halibut fishery will close inseason outside a line approximating 25 fm.

Limited entry trawl fisheries north of Cape Mendocino will be subject to seasonal depth restrictions. Trawls with small footropes will be allowed inside 100 fm most of the year to target flatfish species on the shelf. However, during the July-August period (period 4), the fishery would be further restricted to waters inside of a 75 fm line since the canary rockfish bycatch is higher outside this depth during mid-summer. Trawls will be restricted to outside the 250 fm line north of 38° N. lat. (Point Reyes) to the U.S.-Canada border in order to protect darkblotched rockfish. This deeper-water line will be modified slightly to incorporate some petrale sole fishing grounds shallower than 250 fm during periods 1 (January-February) and 6 (November-December). In no cases will this line be specified for any depths less than 150 fm. Limited entry groundfish trawl trip and landing limits adopted by the Council for next year are shown in Table 3. All three coastal states are expected to close their spot prawn trawl fisheries or restrict opportunities to trawl for spot prawns to deeper waters to minimize the bycatch of overfished shelf rockfish species; however, it may take longer for ODFW to close that fishery as they work through their regulatory process.

Back to Top of Page

Depth Restrictions and VMS

Depth restrictions are a fundamental aspect of the new groundfish management regime adopted by the Council in September. The data used to determine the depth restrictions considered the most effective for reducing fishing mortality of overfished groundfish stocks came from NMFS shelf and slope surveys, International Pacific Halibut Commission halibut surveys, trawl logbooks, and other informational sources. The choice of alternative depth demarcations was made on the basis of balancing stock conservation needs and the socioeconomic consequences of fishing restrictions.

Latitude and longitude waypoints will be specified for most of the fathom lines adopted for management. The states were requested to provide these coordinates to the NMFS by mid-October. Only the shallow nearshore lines in California and Oregon (20 fm south of Cape Mendocino, 27 fm in northern California north of Cape Mendocino and Oregon) will be defined by the fathom contours instead of specified lines approximating these depth contours.

Enforcement of depth restrictions was also a Council consideration. Current enforcement capabilities may be inadequate to enforce depth-based management lines, especially the deeper fathom lines (100 fm). At-sea patrols of deeper management lines may largely depend on the cooperation of the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) and deployment of their helicopters and fixed wing aircraft as well as their larger cutters. Homeland Security and other USCG missions may compromise those enforcement assets. Therefore, the Council requested NMFS establish a vessel monitoring system (VMS) to begin phasing in to the fishery next year.

VMS is a satellite tracking system that allows shoreside personnel to remotely track the location of vessels. Transponders and small computers would be placed on vessels enabling remote tracking and two-way communications. The track signature would indicate whether a vessel was engaged in fishing activities (and the location of those activities) or whether the vessel was transiting a closed area. The two-way communication system would allow skippers to declare their intent or NMFS personnel to warn skippers when they were approaching a closed area. An additional benefit of VMS is the ability of skippers to send a distress signal that also transmits the vessel's location; a feature more important as depth-based management may be sending some vessels further offshore, which increases safety risks.

The Council also discussed the cost of VMS and who would be required to pay. While NMFS has stated they will bear the costs of the mainframe hardware and software at the remote stations, it has not been decided how the on-board components and installation costs would be born. The Council considered testimony of affected fishermen who stated they were on the economic edge and had a generally hard time in the last few years paying for basic overhead and vessel maintenance. The Council therefore requested NMFS pay these on-board component and installation costs. Money has yet to be identified for subsidizing VMS on the West Coast.

The Council also requested that VMS be phased in next year starting with the limited entry groundfish fleet. NOAA Fisheries Enforcement personnel told the Council that VMS could be put in place as early as next June. The system's capacity can accommodate up to 10,000 vessels on the West Coast, which could allow tracking of some portions of the recreational and non-groundfish commercial fleets. Standards for a VMS requirement will be further considered as VMS is implemented.

Another consideration for depth-based management is the ability to implement different, yet coincident management measures in different depth zones and differentiate vessels pursuing different fishing strategies. For instance, deep water trawling for Dover sole, thornyheads, and sablefish is contemplated to occur at the same time as midwater trawling opportunities targeting yellowtail and widow rockfish. The Council therefore adopted a rule requiring one type of gear on board during any one trip and a declaration system where the skipper notifies NMFS of their fishing strategy prior to embarking on a fishing trip. This system would be used in concert with VMS, but is especially important for the period preceding VMS implementation. A state declaration system is expected to be implemented in Oregon and Washington for the remainder of this year (see the Newsletter article on Inseason Adjustments to the Groundfish Fishery) , but a federal declaration system is expected to be implemented for next year. The Paperwork Reduction Act prohibits faster implementation of a federal declaration system.

Back to Top of Page

The adopted harvest levels for groundfish species and species complexes (Table 1) provide the management targets for 2003 groundfish management. However, the bycatch implications of proposed management measures largely influenced the final Council decisions for 2003 groundfish management. Table 6 depicts the expected bycatch of overfished groundfish species in 2003 by fishery under the Council-preferred management measures. Expected bycatch of three of the overfished shelf rockfish species (bocaccio, canary rockfish, and yelloweye rockfish) are expected to constrain 2003 fisheries the most. The NMFS standard for allowable bocaccio bycatch in 2003 was as close to zero fishing mortality as possible, not to exceed 20 mt. The Council's Groundfish Management Team estimates that next year's fishery under the Council-preferred management measures will take about 10.3 mt of bocaccio. Canary rockfish bycatch is the biggest constraint for fisheries contemplated for north of Cape Mendocino. Since recreational fisheries tend to catch smaller canary rockfish than commercial fisheries, they have a larger "per ton" impact in rebuilding the stock. Therefore, the Council had to consider the implications of different recreational and commercial catch shares when adopting management measures consistent with canary rockfish rebuilding needs. The Council ultimately decided to cap the canary rockfish set aside for 2003 Exempted Fishing Permits (EFPs; see the accompanying Newsletter article regarding EFPs) at 6.5 mt. This resulted in a canary rockfish optimum yield of 44 mt with 34% (15 mt) of the 2003 impact coming from recreational fisheries. The expected bycatch of yelloweye rockfish also influenced management measures considered for some fisheries north of Cape Mendocino. Directed line fisheries that traditionally occurred on the shelf were largely affected by yelloweye rockfish rebuilding needs. Specifically, the commercial longline fisheries targeting sablefish, Pacific halibut, and dogfish, as well as the recreational fishery targeting Pacific halibut will be constrained next year. Opportunities to harvest these species commercially will be restricted to waters deeper than 100 fm with the dogfish longline fishery perhaps the most affected since dogfish may not be as accessible in deeper water. Likewise, some areas traditionally fished by Pacific halibut anglers will be closed next year in Washington waters due to the need to protect yelloweye rockfish. Recreational fisheries for Pacific halibut may be further constrained inseason if yelloweye rockfish harvest guidelines are attained prematurely. These fisheries would be restricted to shallow depths (27 fm in northern California and Oregon, 25 fm in Washington), which would significantly constrain Pacific halibut harvest opportunities.

Back to Top of Page

Annual Specifications - Environmental Impact Statement

The Council used an initial draft of an EIS (The Initial Draft Environmental Impact Statement/Regulatory Impact Review/Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis For Proposed Groundfish Acceptable Biological Catch and Optimum Yield Specifications and Management Measures For The 2003 Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery) to come to a decision on 2003 groundfish management measures. The draft annual specifications EIS will be completed in the next few weeks and published in the Federal Register for notice and comment in mid-October. After responses to solicited comments are prepared and published in the Federal Register, a Record of Decision will be signed by the Secretary of Commerce. This is scheduled to occur in early February in time for a March 1 implementation of final regulations. Regulations for January and February will be implemented through an emergency rulemaking, but will be consistent with the final rules adopted for 2003 management.

Back to Top of Page

Download 2003 Groundfish Management
Measure Tables

Trip Limits Published in the Federal Register

Back to Top of Page