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Stating he knows of one business owner who lost more than $40,000 from last summer’s nearshore groundfish fishery closure, Crescent City’s mayor said he’d try to make the Pacific Fishery Management Council’s meeting in Fresno next month.

Blake Inscore couldn’t guarantee he’d be able to present comments in person to the PFMC, but he urged his colleagues to set a not-to-exceed amount for the trip. Councilors on Tuesday unanimously approved spending up to $1,500, which is already in the city’s budget for their travel expenses, along with a letter to the PFMC urging them to allow the fishery to resume for the 2024 season.

“I think it’s incredibly important to our community that we speak loudly,” Councilwoman Kelly Schellong told Inscore. “If you’re willing to go and can get schooled by a fisherman, you would be a great spokesperson for the city. For us it’s going to be about economic development and how [the closure] is impacting our local businesses.”

Del Norters, including Board of Supervisors chairman Dean Wilson, have already begun submitting public comment to the PFMC ahead of its deliberations on the 2024 groundfish fishery. Its meeting will be held at the Fresno Convention Center from March 5-11, though groundfish issues are scheduled to be discussed between March 7-10, according to the Council’s agenda.

Inscore said District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard along with other local fishermen will likely speak in person at the PFMC’s meeting.

Local fishermen argue that the Aug. 21 emergency closure of the 50-fathom Rockfish Conservation Area to protect the quillback rockfish was overbroad, according to the city’s staff report. They also state the data used in implementing the emergency closure “is not necessarily accurate” and add that continuing the closure in 2024 would devastate Del Norte County’s tourism-based economy.

In its letter, which mirrors a similar letter the Board of Supervisors approved Feb. 13, the City Council asks the PFMC to collect “more usable and factual data” on quillback rockfish, set a zero bag limit for them and require anglers use a descending device when releasing them.

The Crescent City Council and Board of Supervisors also brings up the possibility of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife setting a 20-fathom boundary for the groundfish fishery rather than 50 fathoms.

On Tuesday, City Manager Eric Wier, who is also a recreational fisherman, told councilors that the rockfish reside between 120 and 180 feet. He said he could also attest to the quillback’s resilience.

“Quillback are an extremely tough species,” Wier said. “There are other species like the black snapper or blue snapper and they have a high mortality rate because of the trauma they [experience] when they come up from those depths. In quillback, I haven’t personally seen it. They are a tough fish.”

According to Wier, who was citing anecdotal data from local anglers, the percentage of quillback rockfish being released with a descending device is “as high as 80 percent.”

“This letter’s asking them to evaluate those components,” he said. “And then also, with a species like the quillback, when there’s an endangered species, simply say there’s no take of that particular species.”

In November, CDFW scientists stated that when a stock assessment of rockfish was conducted in 2021, there was not a defined California stock for that species, though the “California portion” of quillback rockfish was below the minimum stock-size threshold.

A fisheries management plan being developed in early 2024 was expected to have separate quillback stock definitions for California, Oregon and Washington. In November, CDFW environmental scientist John Budrick told the PFMC that the question is whether the “newly-defined California [quillback rockfish] stock would have the resulting outcome below the minimum stock size threshold.”

According to its March 2024 Situation Summary, the PFMC will hear additional information regarding the California quillback stock and consider adopting a rebuilding analysis for that stock.

Steve Huber, owner of Crescent City Fishing Charters, said NOAA scientists will be on his boat gathering data between March 17-23.

A public meeting at the Flynn Center in Crescent City is being planned for March 20, he told the Wild Rivers Outpost.

Huber said he also plans to attend the PFMC’s meeting in March.

“It’s critical to this area to have a season,” he said. “It’s definitely taking everybody, even the smallest company, to make those comments to make them realize what they’re causing between here, Trinidad and Eureka. It’s not just one single place, it goes up and down the entire coastline.”

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