Dory fishers catch a bit of good news

June Casagrande

Though dory fishermen have won a small reprieve from devastating

new fishing restrictions, their future is far from secure.

Since an emergency ban on catching rockfish last month handed down

a virtual death sentence to the city’s historic dory fleet, locals

lobbied for and won the right to have a handful of fish species

exempted from the ban: long-spine thornyheads, short-spine

thornyheads and sablefish smaller than 22 inches long. Thornyheads,

along with many other rockfish species, are commonly marketed as red

snapper. Sablefish is often sold as sea trout.

But rules that prohibit catching all rockfish in waters 120 feet

or deeper -- an emergency response to studies showing greatly

devastated stocks of bocaccio -- remains intact. And because the

now-off-limits species have long comprised the bulk of the dory men’s

daily catch, they will have a hard time getting by on catching only

thornyhead and sablefish.

Next year could be even tougher. Rules on which fish can be caught

are revised every year. The 2003 rules, which will be discussed at a

Sept. 9 meeting of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council, could

get even tougher on protecting bocaccio, said John DeVore, a manager

for the council.

Bocaccio are not actively sought by the dory fleet because they’re

not a very marketable species. But the rockfish ban was designed to

protect the bocaccio that can get mixed in with other species when

fishermen target rockfish. This could mean more troubles for Newport

Beach’s dory fleet.

“Is the battle won and is the issue over? No. This was just Round

1,” said Jan Baker, who represents the dory fishermen in her family

and, by extension, the dory fleet to federal fisheries regulators.

Baker was successful in her fight to rescind the ban on

thornyheads and sablefish. At her urging, and with some backup from

the city of Newport Beach, fisheries managers were quick to concede

that they had made a mistake in including thornyheads in the

emergency ban last month. They were not so quick to concede their

point that sablefish smaller than 22 inches should be protected.

During the summer, fisheries research suggests, smaller sablefish

live in shallower waters also sometimes frequented by bocaccio. But

this rationale only applies to parts north, Baker argued. Sablefish

tend to be smaller in warmer waters, and therefore just because

they’re small doesn’t mean they’re mixing with bocaccio, she said.

The agencies “didn’t have any survey data south of Point

Conception they could draw on,” DeVore said. “We were able to get

some data from the California Department of Fish and Game and some

other sources that did suggest that Jan was right.”

Baker said she will continue to lobby for reasonable fisheries

management based on solid and relevant science. But only time will

tell whether this fight can save the dory fleet in the long term.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE covers Newport Beach and John Wayne Airport.

She may be reached at (949) 574-4232 or by e-mail at

[email protected].