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Feature Story '99 lingcod season will be curtailed, at best By MARK FREEMAN Fishing for the Pacific's lingcod will be cut back severely, or banned outright, along the entire coast next year as ocean managers scramble to reverse a population crash in this popular bottomfish species. At best, sport-anglers in 1999 can expect to see lingcod fishing shrink from year-round to April through October. Bag limits will also be dropped from three fish to one a day, with a minimum size of 24 inches and a maximum size of 34 inches. At worst, no sport and commercial lingcod harvest would be allowed. A recent marine survey concludes that lingcod have been fished down to 9 percent of their pre-fishing levels. That's low enough to trigger a shutdown to sport and commercial lingcod fishing. The Pacific Fishery Management Council is set Thursday in Portland to address the lingcod dilemma, as well as sport and commercial fisheries for them in 1999. Options on the table are the shortened season with a one-fish limit and size restrictions, or zero fishing. The options also include severe cutbacks in the commercial ling harvest, which traditionally has dominated the ling catches. With a some-is-better-than-nothing approach, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission last week endorsed the cutback season for next year. "It would be flat unacceptable to ignore the problem," says Mark Saelens, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife marine biologist who represents Oregon in PFMC groundfish management issues. The restrictive '99 season would buy a year's time to do a coastwide lingcod assessment to see if the stock is truly that depressed, Saelens says. Then a rebuilding plan -- something that likely will be heavy on fishing restrictions, could be designed to get the ling's slide reversed. "This," Saelens says, "is the most responsible thing we could do." If adopted as expected, it will be sent to the U.S. Department of Commerce for final approval -- and that's not necessarily a rubber-stamp job. "We'll hold our breath and see if this passes muster in Washington, D.C.," Saelens says. The agency could nix the scaled-back season and demand a no-fishing year based on newer, tougher marine laws that are part of the new Magnuson Act, Saelens says. The act says fish managers must rebuild the lingcod population in the next 10 years, and ban fishing if need be. Even if the reduced season is adopted for '99, there is also no guarantee that future years will not bring no-ling fishing rules. That worries Don Crisp, a Brookings charter boat operator who can accept next year's cutbacks as long as fishing remains and rules get loosened if studies show lingcod are not doing that poorly. Restricting the fishing from April to October won't hurt anglers because those months roughly mirror the current fishing interest, Crisp says. A 34-inch maximum size -- which translates roughly into a 20-pound ling -- makes sense because it would protect the older, bigger females that are the best breeders, he says. And one-fish daily limits should not harm regular lingcod anglers, who don't need much more to satisfy their own appetites, Crisp says. "Who I feel for, though, is the people who fish once or twice a year on the charter boats," Crisp says. "It's going to hurt charter boat business." Bottomfish lovers are well-versed with the lure of lingcod, a.k.a. ophidon elongatus. They 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 Baja California north to Kodiak, Alaska. Exceptionally large fish measure 4 feet long and weigh about 40 pounds, with females the largest. Coastal reefs of Oregon, particularly off Coos Bay and Newport, are home to many lingcod. Traditionally, the commercial outfits have hammered the lings (mostly females) in the ocean trawl fishery, while sport-anglers in pleasure boats, charter boats and off jetties or rocks hit mostly egg nest-guarding males. The first foray into sport-fishing cutbacks on lings came in 1995, when the 22-inch minimum was added to the standard three-fish limit. That minimum size was stretched to the 24 inches beginning earlier this year. As recently as 1996, the sport harvest accounted for 15 percent of the lingcod landings. Commercial outfits took the remaining 85 percent. Catches have since become more balanced. This year, the commercial industry has 400 metric tons of lingcod allocated to it, while 438 metric tons are allocated to sportsmen in Washington, Oregon and California. Oregonians take about a third of the sport harvest. The crash in population seems like it has sneaked up on anglers because federal biologists survey lingcod only once every three years. That three-year survey this summer -- which focuses on waters north of Port Orford -- shows the dramatic declines. Unlike efforts to boost dwindling salmon runs by improving habitat, there is little anyone can do to help lingcod rebound except cut back harvest. "Traditional (recovery) models for salmon don't work here," Saelens says. "It's not like we can have lingcod hatcheries." Outdoor Journal main page Mail Tribune Copyright � interRogue & The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA