Open questions...

If you were going to ask for changes to the plan, what are the top three changes you would recommend?

What are the top three things you can’t live with?

Some of us will continue to challenge the numbers, math and assumptions with help from some folks who know more than most of us, but at some point the rubber needs to meet the road. Simply objecting to the plan because you don’t like it, won’t cut it. Whatever the final form of the plan looks like, the bottom line is that it will be designed to protect rockfish and it will likely have significant rule changes.

Food for thought…

MPA’s don’t have to be total no fishing zones. Perhaps there should be some limited rockfish/bottomfish MPA’s but those don’t necessarily have to be no salmon fishing zones. Having a no bottom fishing MPA next to a Rockfish Recovery Area (RRA) may make some sense in that you can treat the MPA as a nursery for the RRA and eventually fish the RRA in a sustainable manner and VERY LONG TERM possibly fish the MPA in a sustainable manner.

There is a group of us trying to bring the seal predation issue to the front of the line. It is significant and largely being ignored as something to deal with. Regardless of whether the Department intends to deal with the issue, it still needs to be acknowledged as a high stressor. The argument that seals are a “natural” stressor is moot; rockfish are at an unnatural low and seals are at a disproportionately high level because of man. As previously mentioned, the possibility exists that MPA's, RRA's and artificial reefs could end up being buffet zones for seals and sea lions.

Another idea (that will come as no surprise to those who know me) is the use of artificial reefs to aid in rockfish recovery. If artificial reefs, through scientific method, are proven to produce fish (hotly contested issue among scientists) then a series of them could be placed around the Sound to be used (eventually) for recreational fishing and other purposes. If they prove effective, that could help the natural reefs recover and still offer recreational fishing opportunities. Even if they don’t “produce” fish they still could prove to be a valuable tool in rockfish management.

Additionally, we need to have a set of rules requiring commercial nets to be permanently marked with the owner’s name and mandatory reporting when they are lost. Something like if you lose your net and report it, you get it back. If you lose it and don’t report it, you pay a fine and pay to have it removed and don’t get it back.

And finally, zero rockfish retention in MA’s 5-13 will mean no recreational targeting of rockfish and will result in significantly less “recreational encounters” and any incidental encounters would be insignificant. This should be given equal weight when compared to the other stressors.

Rockfish recovery will not happen overnight so I would tell you that we should be prepared for a series of long term solutions; some of which will work and some won’t make any difference and we won’t like most of them.

What you got?