All Rockfished Out

Since my father first took me fishing--in 1955 when I was 5 years old--rockfish have always been a sure thing in and around the Santa Monica Bay. The swifter and splashier bonito would pass by for only a few months in the summer and then--as the bay became more polluted--just stopped coming around at all. Likewise with the fierce and toothy barracudas. And significant “bites” by the mighty yellowtail became infrequent enough to fall into the category of near-legend.

But throughout my youth and adolescence, just about any time of the year I could board the Betty O or the orange-painted Kiora or the diesel-belching Indiana sport fishing boats at a local pier and, after a short run out of the bay, find the lumpy, lumbering rockfish to be plentiful and hungry.

There wasn’t much art to hooking or landing these bug-eyed, sharp-finned and brightly colored denizens of deeper, colder waters. I’d load up a couple of leaders with wriggling anchovies and let a big chunk of lead pull my line to the bottom. Usually within a few minutes, a series of deep tugs would signal that the rockfish had obliged. Then came the laborious task of cranking up the heavy catch. There was none of the fight or challenge afforded by the hard-striking bonito. None of the cunning of the elusive halibut.

No, the catch of puffy, orange-red rock cod would come up to the surface like so many wet burlap sacks. It was the most earnest sort of fishing. The payoff wasn’t in the struggle but rather in quantity and quality. It was routine to limit out with a catch of 10. And unlike the oily, gamy flesh of the bonito, the California rockfish produced thick, white, meaty fillets.

Made up of more than 80 species, and known commonly as red snapper, rock cod, ling cod and bocaccio, these fish--which can live 50 or even 100 years--doggedly persisted in our waters even as other species migrated or evaporated. Right up until last Sunday, local amateur fisherman could catch a boat from Redondo Beach, Marina del Rey, San Pedro or Oxnard and even with a rented pole and little experience pretty much be guaranteed some sort of rock cod catch.

But those days are now, abruptly, over. Since July 1, not only California’s commercial fishermen but also we recreational anglers have effectively been prohibited from taking rock cod. After a scientific study revealed that some rockfish stocks had been depleted by as much as 95%, the Pacific Fishery Management Council--a hybrid of state and federal regulators--ordered that rockfish in waters deeper than 120 feet be off-limits. That’s most of them. The measure could hit California’s commercial fishing industry like a tsunami and will certainly rock the boats of local sport fishing operators.

“It’s going to hit us real hard,” says Ryan Peterson, manager of San Pedro’s L.A. Harbor Sportfishing. “It’s going to affect our business and a lot of others--everyone from the fuel dock to our food suppliers to sporting good stores. You’re going to see a big downturn around here.”

But the ban--a stark reminder of the finite limits of the environment we so often thoughtlessly exploit--was a long time in coming and absolutely necessary. If anything, it was too little, too late.

Scientists have known for years that our local rockfish weren’t reproducing in sufficient numbers. Some 20 years of poor ocean conditions, El Nino episodes that have uncomfortably warmed the waters for the cool-minded rock cod and general environmental degradation have all taken their toll on this otherwise rugged species.

But government management--or mismanagement--of our marine fisheries is also to blame. Hard to believe, but it wasn’t until 1999 that the state of California as much as required itself to conduct an annual scientific survey of the health and abundance of fish stock. No surprise that the state was so lax. State ocean fisheries management has been chronically underfunded and far too much influenced by the commercial interests of the fishing industry. For decades the state simply closed its eyes to the depletion of stock by massive overfishing.

Not only did government twiddle its thumbs as the crisis deepened, it also helped create it. Worried about foreign competition, the federal government in the 1970s offered tax breaks and low-interest loans to domestic fishermen. Soon, commercial fleets were hungrily scooping up millions of tons of fillet-rich rockfish in their industrial-sized trawler nets.

Federal law, however, requires that endangered fish species not only be shielded from extinction but also be nurtured back up to 40% of the level they were at before commercial fishing. It was on that basis the Pacific council finally acted. But if palliative measures had been taken earlier, the abrupt, draconian step implemented last week might have been avoided.

As it is, the new regulations aren’t as tough and sweeping as those recommended by council scientists, which means the regulatory body is still postponing the inevitable. It’s an open secret that within the next few months the fishing ban is likely to be widened to include Oregon and Washington and probably extended into shallower waters. It might also affect other species. As big as the shock of this first get-tough measure is, it should be seen as only the beginning of an open-ended and uncertain process that could radically redefine our relationship to the sea and its animal riches.

Some local sportfishing operators claim that is all hooey and that their livelihoods are being unfairly threatened. They point to the current heavy bite of bocaccio--the rockfish species supposedly most endangered. Anglers on half-day and three-quarter-day sport boats are often limiting out on their catch this summer. “I think [the ban] is extreme. I feel like the state wants to put us out of business,” Peterson says. “Based on our own data, we’ve seen a decrease in size of the rockfish but no real impact on the quantity.”

But marine biologists say that is precisely the problem. The current crop of bocaccio is mostly 3-year-old fish born in 1999, when there was an unexpectedly high survivorship of young fish. But since there hadn’t been a year like that in the preceding 20--nor has there been one since--there is, to borrow a sports metaphor, a pretty thin bench. The young bocaccio may, indeed, be plentiful this summer, but there are few other fish in front of or in back of them and their continued taking is just not sustainable.

Some of the commercial fleet operators who took advantage of the federal subsidies of the 1970s are now insisting they be economically rescued. They are urging Congress to pass a $50-million “buy back” of fishing boats, saying this is all the fault of the feds who first lured them to fish so vigorously.

Debating an industry bailout is only a distraction, however, from the much tougher questions about our long-term relationship with the environment. And if the scientists are right, we are going to have plenty of time to calmly reflect on that issue. Biologists say that it will be decades, maybe even as long as a century, before the rockfish recover. No doubt these new regulations--and the ones sure to follow--are going to put a big crimp in California fishing. But that’s better than winding up with no fishing at all.

With some good luck, then, and maybe with some more painful lessons taken to heart, my still unborn grandchildren will also be able to experience the thrills I did when I was able to cast a line into a bay teeming with obliging fish.