Regulation of Squid Fishing on Agenda

The state Department of Fish and Game will hold a public hearing tonight to discuss how to best regulate squid fishing.

Beginning at 7 p.m. at the Oxnard Harbor District, 333 Ponoma St. in Port Hueneme, state Fish and Game officials will meet with residents and local fishermen to discuss the problems of operating in an unregulated fishery.

Three years of record harvests that netted nearly a billion pounds of the mollusk have led some commercial fishermen to call for more regulations to manage a fishery they say may dwindle if past practices are followed.

The hearing is being held as part of a move by the state to begin implementing limits on how much squid can be harvested and where fisherman can catch squid.

The state Fish and Game Department also plans a comprehensive study of the squid population off the California coast, where the bulk of the catch is harvested.

Although squid fishermen have been virtually landlocked the past season after warm El Nino waters drove the squid to colder waters farther out to sea, officials say the hearing will not address that topic nor the problems many of those fishermen have had in recent months qualifying for federal disaster loans.