A Fading Fleet

At the rustic market where the Newport Beach dory fleet does business, Stratos Voyatzis frets over a few dozen slick, black sablefish that his two sons have worked through the night to catch.

“Not enough, not enough,” the 72-year-old patriarch says in a heavy Greek accent. “You can’t support three families with this.”

His eldest son, Marco, does the arithmetic. Minus expenses for line, hooks, gas, bait and hired hands, that leaves about $100 per family assuming all their fish are sold at $3 a pound.

The Voyatzises are not alone. The few families that have worked for decades out of this historic beachfront site off McFadden Square are all in the same boat.

A popular tourist attraction and source of fresh seafood since 1891, the last fleet of dory men on the West Coast is going the way of the family farm and the mom-and-pop grocery.

As late as 1990, 15 to 20 men regularly operated out of the group’s headquarters and fish market on the sand next to Newport Pier, pushing off early each morning through the surf in their flat-bottom boats.

Now there are no more than six, and some of the tightest fishing restrictions in years are threatening to put them, as well as their unique lifestyle, out of business.

“It’s steadily gotten worse and worse,” said Jim Baker, 55, of Costa Mesa, who has been a Newport dory man for 23 years. “It takes $250 a day just to get out and fish. If I can’t cover costs, I’ve got to find another job. That day is not too far away.”

In an emergency action on June 20, the federal government ordered a halt to commercial fishing off much of the California coast for popular varieties of rockfish, commonly sold as red snapper.

Federal officials say the action is the beginning of what could become an indefinite closure of the continental shelf off California, Oregon and Washington to bottom fishing. Permanent regulations will be decided in September.

The emergency action follows the latest population estimates showing that rockfish numbers continue to plunge despite catch limits and other conservation measures. Of 16 types of rockfish studied so far, biologists have determined that nine have been grossly overfished.

In addition, the California Department of Fish and Game is considering resource management plans for near-shore waters shallower than 120 feet. Public hearings are scheduled throughout the summer.

Under the current ban, fishermen cannot take rockfish from a depth greater than 120 feet. Because the species can be taken by mistake and dies when raised to the surface, the closures could hurt hundreds of bottom trawlers and long-line fishermen, including Newport’s dory men.

“The new regulations could devastate the last of us,” said Frank Leal, a wiry man of 56 who has been with the dory fleet for 31 years. “It’s a shame. People love us. The place has so much history.”

Dory men have had a constant presence in Newport Beach since 1891, when a Portuguese fisherman began selling his catch on the beach out of his wooden boat, rather than hauling it to market.

Since then, the fleet headquarters has steadily grown from a cluster of wooden sheds into a heavily timbered compound with 18 stalls, a central market area, and a crusty wharf-like atmosphere.

It is a historical landmark, and the fishermen who work there have inspired poetry and children’s books.

“I like this place,” said Shiny Bian of Rowland Heights, who, with her son Felix, has bought sablefish from the dory fleet twice a month for the last three years. “I always buy two.”

If the fleet goes out of business, Newport Beach officials say it will represent a significant cultural loss for the region. For decades, the city has used the dory men to promote tourism and local business.

“It’s one of the traditions that is slowly passing away,” said Marcus DeChevrieux, curator of the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum. “It just isn’t financially viable anymore to take your dory out and catch fish with hand lines. It’s just a man and a boat.”

Hours before dawn, the dory men push their 18-foot craft through the churning surf near the city pier and navigate to their fishing grounds with watch and compass.

Each sets up to a mile of line fitted with thousands of hooks. The catch is removed by hand and tossed into the bottom of the boat. It’s tough, physical work.

Outboard engines have replaced sails and oars, but there are no nets or high-tech electronics. A slicker is the only protection in case of rain or rough seas.

“It’s always been a tough buck,” said Baker, a slender man with a deep tan and a neatly trimmed mustache.

For this reason, some dory men have left to take more predictable, less arduous jobs. Others shoved off after the 1990 tanker spill in Huntington Beach that fouled a popular fishing area with crude oil and slowed sales at the dory fleet’s market.

Others still fish, but in different parts of Southern California. And some have died, like Timothy Meek, 33, who disappeared off Newport Beach in 1998 while trying to catch enough fish to buy his son a bicycle for Christmas.

Looking around the fleet’s headquarters today, there are few, if any, young people interested in taking over the operations of those who will be retiring in the years ahead.

Academics and state officials say commercial fishing on the West Coast has been in steady decline because of a host of factors, including environmental problems, a warm-water trend, declining fish stocks and increasing regulations to conserve marine resources.

Statistics from the California Department of Fish and Game show that commercial landings in the Newport Beach area have plunged over the last decade.

In 1990, about 433,000 pounds of seafood valued at $744,000 was harvested, more than half of it sablefish, rockfish, sculpin and white croaker. By 2000, the catch had dropped to 212,000 pounds, worth about $555,000.

The take for Newport Beach represents a fraction of California’s annual harvest, which is now valued at about $550 million, the fifth largest in the nation, according to Fish and Game officials.

The dory men agree that fish stocks need to be better managed, but they say they are not the main cause of the excessive harvests that triggered the federal ban on rockfish. They blame large commercial operations in Northern California, Oregon and Washington.

“They let the bank robbers get away,” Leal said as he sliced strips of meat from his catch of small mackerel. “Now, they are pointing their fingers at the jaywalkers.”

But state Fish and Game officials say the decline of rockfish is so severe in some cases that the ban must be broadly applied to replenish the stocks, a task that could take 90 years for bocaccio. At one time, the fish was a staple at markets in Southern and Central California.

“The mining of resources has occurred,” said L.B. Boydstun, a government affairs representative for the California Department of Fish and Game. “We are at such a low point it doesn’t matter who is doing the fishing. Everybody’s catch counts.”

The department is considering lifting some restrictions on thorny head, a type of fish the Newport dory men often hook, Boydstun said. The potential change might ease the pain for the dory men during the federal ban.

Fishermen affected by the new restrictions, Boydstun said, might be eligible for a $2.1-million relief program that includes funding for safety equipment, research and job retraining.

Meanwhile, the dory men anxiously await their fate.

They have heard so many rumors and conflicting stories about the new rules they are no longer sure what is going to happen to them.

Those in their 50s hope to fish for another five years or so and retire. But for the younger anglers, such as Mitch Breneman, 41, of Costa Mesa, that might not be an option.

Breneman, whose family has been a fixture at the dory fleet for decades, used to catch sculpin, but he could not catch enough at depths of less than 120 feet to make any money.

“There are so many rules and regulations, I am limited to sharks and kingfish,” he says as he cleans and filets small smoothhound sharks for his customers. “If things stay they way they are now, it’s going to kill us.”