Fishermen Return to Work : Weather: Boats line up for fuel and ice. The storm-roughened seas were relatively calm for the first time in a month.

Idled at the docks by the past month’s rainstorms, Ventura County’s commercial fisherman began returning to the sea Thursday after weathering their worst month in eight years.

“March has brought us to our knees,” said Rob Durfos, 38, of Oxnard as he readied his boat at Channel Islands Harbor to fish for cod and snapper.

“Everybody’s itching to get out,” said Bob Wallen, 50, a sea urchin diver from Ojai. “We needed the rain, but they could turn it off now.”

Not since the El Nino Effect of early 1983 has the California fishing industry been held so captive to the weather. Though the rainstorms that began Feb. 27 gave way to intermittent clear skies ashore, conditions remained treacherous at sea.

Winds reached gale force between the storm fronts, whipping up steady swells of six to 12 feet, said area fishermen, members of the Ventura County Commercial Fishermen’s Assn.

With milder seas expected through Monday, fishing boats lined up Thursday for fuel and ice to pack their catch. Some planned daily runs into the Santa Barbara Channel. Others collected supplies to venture farther out to sea for several days.

Dale Prine, a crabber from Oxnard, took advantage of calm seas to head three miles offshore to catch spider and rock crabs. His catch netted him about $80.

“The chop is two to three feet today, not such bad seas to work in,” Prine said.

Don Wood, a shrimper from Oxnard, checked his traps in the Channel Thursday for the first time in a week. Wood hauled in 25 pounds of shrimp. A normal day’s catch in March would be 200 to 300 pounds.

“It would have been nice if I caught more, but it was still good to get back to work,” Wood, 27, said. He shared the $125 he made from Thursday’s catch with a deckhand.

Nearly 300 commercial fishing boats--most of them owner-operated--are docked in Ventura, Port Hueneme and Channel Islands harbors. Many boats had not gone out for nearly five weeks. Those that braved the past month’s rough seas brought in catches that were generally poor at best.

Gary Douglas, who normally goes urchin diving from 14 to 16 days in March, went on six urchin runs, making him one of the most daring among his peers. He caught between 400 and 600 pounds per outing, compared to a usual daily take of 1,000 to 1,200 pounds.

Despite the potential danger, Douglas went diving by himself around the Channel Islands because he could not be sure he would make enough to pay a “tender,” or deckhand.

“You don’t have anyone watching the deck if the air compressor quits, or if the anchor cuts free and your boat blows off, dragging you by the hose,” Douglas, 32, of Ojai said.

“It gets to the point you don’t want to take chances, but sooner or later finances force you to go,” said Mike Enriquez, who trawled for shrimp several days in spite of the hazardous conditions.

Durfos, who fishes for bottom fish on long-lines, has taken his 45-foot boat out only once since the rains began. He said his total haul was 93 pounds, a fraction of the usual daily catch of 1,000 to 3,000 pounds of fish.

“Everyone’s champing at the bit to go out and please the local market,” Durfos said.

Seafood Specialties, a Ventura wholesale distributor, was forced to lay off 30 processing employees earlier this month because there was no fish for them to fillet, General Manager David Rosales said.

The company normally buys 125,000 to 300,000 pounds of local rock cod in March, and sells fillets for $1.65 to $1.95 per pound, Rosales said. What little cod he is getting from Canada and Washington costs him $2.75 per pound.

“As long as this plant’s been in existence, for 17 years, it’s never been worse,” said Rosales, who also usually buys local snapper, halibut, angel shark and sea bass during March. “It’s been awful.”

Within recent weeks, prices paid by wholesalers for sea urchins destined for Japan have jumped from about 70 cents to a high of $1.50 per pound, said Danny Graham, an urchin diver and non-voting member of the Ventura County Commercial Fishermen’s Assn.

“This month has been really bad up and down the coast,” Graham said. “I’m headed up to Northern California to try and get some days in up there.”

Jim Hudson, 45, of Oxnard, another urchin fisherman, spent Thursday afternoon working on his boat’s air compressor in preparation for a Friday dive.

Hudson and his fellow urchin fishermen had to pay $620 this month to renew their licenses, a bill that could not have come due at a worse time. “As hungry as everyone is,” he said, “they’ll probably be working real long days this weekend.”