Rick Sheppard: Fishing in decline

By LEE JUILLERAT

H&N Regional Editor

March 14, 2008

Rick Sheppard says Klamath River problems have decimated fishing.

    CRESCENT CITY , Calif. — Rick Sheppard is a commercial fisherman who thoroughly enjoys his work. Or he used to. 

   “This harbor is a mess. The docks are falling apart,” he says, pointing at cracks in concrete and flaking layers of paint at the Crescent City harbor. “It’s largely due to the fall down of commercial and sport fishing. It’s really devastated the entire community.” 

   Sheppard remembers not so many years ago when the commercial salmon fishing season stretched from May 1 to Sept. 30, and the only restrictions were on the size, 26 inches or longer. Trawlers from Russia fishing for hake joined West Coast boats on waters outside Crescent City . “There was tremendous activity.” 

   In recent years, because of declines in salmon populations in the Klamath River , “There’s virtually no season at all.” In 2007, he and others were limited to 6,000 Chinook salmon, which were caught in three days. 

    Crescent City fishermen often travel south to the San Francisco area, where there are fewer restrictions. That’s something Sheppard did for eight years until deciding he was spending too much time away from his children. For several years, he fished for shrimp and bottom fish, then he bought a 48-foot boat, the Sunset, when the demand for wild salmon increased. But restrictions, including the salmon fishery shutdown in 2006, created flux and uncertainty. 

   “There are seafood restaurants and if they can’t get salmon, they’re going to get them from somewhere else,” he says of losing markets. 

   Common Ground Alliance  

   “For years we blamed the farmers, but we’ve learned they’re doing more to put water in the river,” says Sheppard, who became familiar with upper Klamath Basin concerns through the Common Ground Alliance, a group that includes farmers, tribal members and commercial fishermen. 

   “We’re frustrated with politicians who work hard to raise millions of dollars, but we don’t know where the money goes. We formed this alliance to look for solutions. We’re trying to find solutions so we can get fish back into the water, and water for farmers.” 

   Sheppard, 53, who also serves as president of the Del Norte Fishing Marketing Association, says the downward spiral is intensifying with no end in sight. 

   “Now there’s a problem every year,” says Sheppard, who gets animated as his emotions rise. “That Klamath River has really devastated Del Norte County. I’d like to know what is running me out of business.”

Side Bar

Rick Sheppard on the Restoration Agreement:

   Uncertain: “I don’t know what I think about it. I hear the dams are very inefficient. My thinking is those dams have been around for a long time, and fishing was OK. They don’t have any fish ladders — that’s horrible. My question would be, why did they allow them to build them without ladders?” 

   What concerns him is the uncertainty of whether any of the settlement’s proposals will actually work. “If it (taking out dams) is going to produce more fish, I don’t know,” he admits. 

   He’s also frustrated that, from his point of view, the effects of water problems along the Klamath River Basin impacted commercial fishermen more than tribes and farmers.

“But we’re forgotten.”

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