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South coast rock fishing soon to hit rock bottom By MARK FREEMAN The minimum length of lingcod taken by Pacific anglers next year may be increased to 26 inches. Efforts to help two depressed Pacific bottomfish species rebound next century have sport and commercial fishermen now prepared to carve up a smaller rockfish pie between them. When federal fish managers meet in Sacramento next month to hash out fishing seasons meant to protect lingcod and canary rockfish along the West Coast, one thing is certain: both sportsmen and commercial fishermen will both leave the table hungry. Catches of the big, lean and mean lingcod next year will be about half of this year's already reduced levels. Cuts may be even deeper to protect the smaller canary rockfish, which Oregon sportsmen typically catch while jigging for the two most common bottomfish species -- the black and blue rockfish. How deep the cuts go for sportsmen or commercial fishermen will depend upon whether the Pacific Fishery Management Council spreads the recovery plans' pain equally between the two interests, or if the council leans more heavily on one side to buoy the other. Either way, sport anglers will suffer unprecedented Y2K shortages. For lingcod fishing, the cuts will likely lead to a drop in the sport-anglers' lingcod limits from two to one fish a day and even more restrictions. The added restrictions could include a winter lingcod fishing ban, a raising of the minimum size of "keeper" lingcod and even a slot limit that also protects the larger, older lings from harvest. But changes for protecting canary rockfish might dig even deeper -- possibly even a full drop in the daily bottomfish limit from 15 to 10 fish, with a cap on two canary rockfish a day. "For lingcod, I think we're likely to see the one-fish bag (limit), and it's quite likely that we'll see a drop from 15 to 10 in bottomfish," says Don Bodenmiller, the marine recreational fisheries project leader for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "It could be more," Bodenmiller says. "It will come down to what's considered fair and equitable." Fairness and equality take center stage when the PFMC meets Nov. 3-8 in Sacramento. The 14-member council will set next year's seasons, which then must be accepted by the federal Department of Commerce. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will take up the matter Friday in Astoria, where the commissioners will be briefed on the various season options and likely weigh in with the state's recommendation. The upcoming fight might become as rough and tumble as the lingcod itself. Lingcod are long and spiny fish, with big heads, canine-like teeth and oversized mouths. Their white flesh is considered a delicacy, and they are prize catches for sport fishermen who revere them as much for their tough fighting as their smooth eating. They range from Mexico to Alaska. Exceptionally large fish measure 4 feet long and weigh about 40 pounds, with females the largest. With 4,300 fish landed there last year, Brookings is the sportsmen's lingcod capital of Oregon. A 1997 marine survey concluded that lingcod have been fished down by 91 percent from levels before lingcod fishing began. That's low enough to trigger a shutdown on sport and commercial lingcod fishing under the new Magnuson Act. When a fish species population such as lingcod estimates at less than 10 percent of pre-fishing levels, the new provisions of the act say fish managers must rebuild the population in the next 10 years and ban fishing if need be. Research in Washington shows that lingcod fishing can continue in reduced levels while still giving the fish a very good chance of recovery. The question is, just how little will future lingcod seasons be. One option for next year is cutting the season to June 1 through Aug. 31, but keep the two-fish daily limit. The second option calls for a season length of April 1 through Sept. 30 and a one-fish daily limit. In both options, the 24-inch minimum size restriction would remain. The June-through-August season is likely if fish managers decide to equally divide the harvestable amount of lingcod equally between sport and commercial fishermen. The option calling for more fishing months but only one-fish daily limits would be allowed only if sport anglers received a larger piece of the lingcod pie for 2000. Another option, which has been suggested by California fish managers, calls for increasing the minimum lingcod size to 26 inches for sport anglers as a means to create a longer sport-fishing season. But the picture is different for canary rockfish, a small and spiny critter usually caught in waters of 150 feet or more. Canary rockfish by sportsmen catches actually out-number lingcod catches, and they trail only black and blue rockfish in terms of most often caught by Oregon's offshore sport-anglers. But they are not as common in Southern Oregon as the rest of the state. Brooking's canary rockfish catches rank fifth among Oregon sport-fishermen's ports. Most of the canaries are caught in deep water by sport-anglers jigging for black and blue rockfish. Unlike lingcod, which survive well when caught and released, the canary rockfish cannot be released unharmed because they invariably blow their swim bladders when hauled from the deep. "A caught canary," Bodenmiller says, "is a dead canary." Research shows that banning all canary rockfish catches by sportsmen will not achieve the recovery levels demanded by the Magnusen Act, Bodenmiller says. But sport-anglers must play some part in the recovery, even though catch-and-release fishing provides no real option. The most likely scenario is having anglers avoid them as much as possible -- and the most likely tool for this avoidance is to drop the bottomfish limits. Another option to steer anglers away from canary rockfish is to close deep-water rockfish jigging, but that option likely will be less popular than a drop in the daily limit. Either way, the final two months of 1999 will likely be the last time sport anglers can travel to the Oregon Coast for a day's fishing and come back with 15 bottomfish and two lingcod. (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA