Will we ever learn to protect fish before it's too late?
http://www.dailyastorian.info/main.asp?F...ubSectionID=398

NO! Basic human greed WILL be the downfall of planet Earth.

No! i've seen nothing to convince me we've learned anything.

If this massive closure is immenent, I find it interesting that our wildlife dept. is not mentioning this in any way....so far. You'd think they'd ease us into the reality of it so it isn't such a shock. At least people could prepare. On the other hand, maybe they deem we aren't worthy and will just drop the bomb?

There was a similar article in the Seattle Times today, too.

One species I haven't heard much about lately is the Pacific True Cod. I can't be the only one who remembers catching a 15 fish limit in the Tacoma Narrows in the mid-70's, with 15 fish putting about 60 or 70 pounds of fillets in the freezer. Heck, you could even count on at least half a dozen three to ten pounders off the piers in Seattle.

Zippo, now. From what I've heard, it was due to massive commercial overfishing in Alaska.

Anyone else remember fishing for true cod here in Puget Sound? Any other info about their demise?

Fish on...

Todd

From what I've heard, the true cod were decimated by bottom draggers (trawlers) right in Puget Sound.

-N.

i remember catching true cod at redondo years ago. i haven't seen one caught in the last 10 or 15 years. its really sad.

Todd,
Ya, I remember those true cod. I used to catch them all winter when was a kid. They got hammered from every direction. The draggers hit them pretty hard. I remember several years ago WDFW tried to close a trawl season in the straits to protect true cod. The draggers took WDFW to court to re-open the season. The judge ruled in favor of the draggers. There was also a set gillnet season that hit them hard near Port Townsend. At the same time cod were incidental catch in the set gillnet,longline and trawl dogfish fisheries in the sound. Then there was the sport season that pounded them on the spawning area around Agate Pass. I can remember hundreds of boats fishing them everyday in the winter season over there. What a shame they are fished out.

I like this quote:
"This is scary stuff, said Pete Leipzig, executive director of the Fisherman's Marketing Association, which represents commercial harvesters in California, Oregon and Washington. People like myself are struggling with how to get creative, how we can structure some kind of fishing off the shelf, on the continental slope, to sustain some fishing."

In other words we will never stop until everything is gone.

I also remember pier jigging for squid in the winter and using them for P-cod bait,used to do real good.That was twenty years ago though.

The reason for the disapearnce I have always been given was bottom trawlers in the straights and puget sound.

I also spent six years trawling up off the aleautians for p-cod.The succesfull skippers were the guys that had the knowledge of secret roookeries in and around the islands.It was nothing to litterally scoop 120 tons of fish up, run,hide untill processed and hopefully get back to the rookery before all the exitement was over.We used to hug the islands with our lights out to keep other boats from finding our spots.After the europeans fished there stocks down they immediatly came over to our northern waters and would run around year round dragging the nets scratching for all they could get.Some of the storys of little wars I have heard of over cod stocks it does not surprise me that they have all but disapeared.It did not take long for the fish to get harder and hareder to find.Unfortunately there is a huge market for these fish.I am unsure if they have changed to quotas on the p-cod but they need to.Pollack was a junk fish untill the p-cod stocks dwindled.

Have any of you seen the movie

SOYLENT GREEN

Its stars Edmund G Robinsun and Charles Heston. Looks like a science fiction movie is coming true.

Everyone reading this thread should go out and buy and read the book "Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World" by Mark Kurlansky. It covers the history of cod in the North Atlantic, from pre-Columbus to modern times. Very interesting reading. Check it out here: Cod

I visited Newfoundland in 1981, when the inshore, small boat, handline cod fishery was still going
strong, and first few trawlers were showing up. It was an amazing place. I can't imagine what it's like now with no cod there. The people there had NOTHING else... no logging, no mining, no industry, NOTHING... they had a saying, "fish or get out."

Just an interesting book.

-N.

I think it's a damn shame that the commercials have raped and pillaged the fish stocks, and yet it's us who catch a few fish a day who pay for their excesses first.

The world eats fish.The united states is the third largest buyer of fish next to the chinease and the japanease.The population of all three of us is growing I do not know exactly how fast but too fast for the worlds reasorces with the spoiled mentality we have become acustomed to.

As much as people are crying about the economy it is good which keeps a good price in the market.

The f/t I worked on made the parent company millions a season.Durring the winter we made our money just like the indians stripping chums for the roe,we stripped pollack for the roe.Actually we were required to have I think it was a ratio of 17% roe to flesh.Dont think we didnt high grade buy stripping fish in the sorting room and dumping low grade row.The bottom line is that we left a trail of hundreds of TONS wasted fish behind us the whole time.

After the american waters slowed the world went to russian waters where there was next to no regulations and for a small fee you could rape and piliage there waters.The sarimy boats{I doubt I am spelling that right but this is your artificial crab meat}can procces just about any size fish can nock out a stock real quick by dropping mesh sizes and keeping everything.The fish is essentialy cooked down for its protien so the filet machines do not have to be accurate at all and can chew threw I am guessing 50 tons of fish a day.It is insane and gross but wil not go away because of the money involved.

LOL Fishaddict

Soylent green=great movie.

I don't have time to go into the whole subject right now except to say that we are at risk of loosing our halibut season on the coast because of this problem.

But for a small bit of good news, I have caught 3 true cod in Puget Sound in the last 2 years. Two of them South of Redondo, and one around Manchester. So at least there is a reminant population to rebuild from.

Well, Well, Well.
I just checked in and read the post, and sorry, I cant even ACT as though I'm too surprised or sympathetic.
Fact of the matter is that it's time someone woke up and smelled the coffee. Although the article is biased toward the plight of commercial fishermen, Its about time they all realized the extent of overharvest by high seas / offshore / international fishers, and honestly revisited their lack of concern for reproductive cycles & maturation periods of their prey.
I read a great deal of whining about "the loss of a lifestyle" in the article. I fail to understand why commercial fishermen should feel so special that they should be exempt from the laws of nature...or economics. Seems to me that all through history, people have had to adapt to changing economics due to improper planning: In the Southern U.S., didnt farmers have to switch to growing peanuts, because cotton depleted the soil? I truly dont remember the details, but it was something along that line. So what's the difference? That was then, this is now, and then it was someone else, now it's me??
I could rave on, but I'm gonna get outta here before this pot of coffee gets the best of me.
'Head hunter

I guess I wasnt really done after all.
This wouldnt be the first west coast commercial fishery to be closed... Seems there was a complete closure of Commercial Alaskan King Crab a few years ago. Now, more carefully managed, with quotas & limits and seasons, the fishery is recovering, or appears to be.
For the commercial guys to bemoan a loss of lifestyles, they knew what they were doing the road signs were there for a long time, and if they were truly concerned, should have explored alternatives long before this time.
I should have, as well. I've been in construction for nearly 25 years. Now that industry really sucks, and I'm having to look at some other manner of making a living... I guess you can only pave so much of the landscape before you run out of room.
Anyone need a deck hand??

There's a lot of talk of the impacts caused by commercial fleets... don't forget the impacts us sporties have too.

I just got back from a great charter trip in Westport. Here's an estimate of the catch for the day: 25 people aboard a bottomfish charter
X 10 rockfish each
X 10 boats in the area...
-rough estimate of 2500 fish coming from the grounds a day.

Total that all summer long, and consider the target catch is a slow growing, low fecundity species...

That's only if each charter boat is full, and if everyone on the boat catches their limit. In reality, I'm betting the numbers are less than you estimated by quite a bit.

I've done a lot fishin' from charter boats in westport and not only do a lot of boats get their limits but when into a fast bite most deckhands and skippers don't keep track of fish onboard and on the way back to the basin they'd count'em and throw excess fish overboard. The main charter i went on was Rocky's Charter, but only on the ranger before Zane Rockey passed away, on the way in he'd scoop up the fish thrown overboard just so that they wouldn't go to waste. Quit fishin on those because after Zane passed went out through a different shop and ended up on a boat throwin' dead sea bass back because nobody kept count. It made me sick. I'll never charter from west port again!