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Eureka
's commercial fishery
promised only 30 fish a day until 6,000 fish were caught.
Since the supply of salmon this year was never enough to
bring the price below $5 a pound, the paltry offering was
enough to entice fishermen to chug north as long as 30 hours
-- and that with diesel at more than $3 a gallon.
The California Department
of Fish and Game said that about 80 boats generally fish out
of
Eureka
in the September season,
but this year it was more than 125.
”Man, oh man, I think
the quota's going to be caught before we set our gear,”
worried Eureka fisherman Dave Bitts said over the radio on
opening day, Sept. 10.
At
7 a.m.
, Newman left the wheelhouse and joined Clay Inskeep on deck. The
Maria Isabel was due west of Arcata. The two began to run
out steel wires onto which a series of hooks would be
clipped. They set 35 hooks to run at various depths, testing
the waters in hope of a quick bite.
The gear was just set
when Newman said there was a bite. Inskeep brought in the
flashers and hooks and reset them, over and over and over.
When a line pulled taught with a fish, Inskeep or Newman
pulled it by hand to the stern. Reaching over the gunwale,
they slid the gaff hook through the gills to flip a big
salmon on board, or used it to twist loose the hook and free
undersized fish.
The size limit was 28
inches, and maybe nine out of 10 fish that came in were just
under that. They would have been legal during the
Fort
Bragg
season, but off Humboldt
they had to be tossed back.
It wasn't long before
Newman tired of the situation. Fishermen communicate in a
variety of ways. Some are staunchly secretive, sharing their
positions and the quality of the fishing there with only a
few, often on separate radio channels. Others are inclined
to send out information for everyone to hear; others seem to
disseminate misinformation. Now vital cell phones -- most
fishermen have two or three -- allow one-on-one
conversations.
One phone call that came
in held promise.
”We gotta go north,”
Newman said. “That's the big scoop.”
Newman and Inskeep pulled
in the gear, and the Maria Isabel worked her way over a flat
sea.
It was a smart move. Ten
minutes after setting the gear again, 11 fish are caught,
and with each catch, the fish seemed larger. The two have to
get the net out on several occasions, heaving fish up to 25
pounds on board.
Still, it's not red hot,
but Newman said it's probably the best fishing he's seen
this year.
Inskeep, who has spent
countless hours tending the lines this season, put it in
perspective.
”One time it was nine
hours with one fish,” he said.
Newman predicts that this
year might be a disaster for many like last, when fisheries
regulators shut down the fishery to protect
Klamath River
stocks. That year led to
congressionally authorized fishery disaster assistance, the
second time in
U.S.
history. This year, that's
unlikely.
Fishermen are forever
preparing for the next thing. While seasons may technically
begin and end, they often blend into each other. With a
limit of salmon on board, Newman pointed the Maria Isabel
back to port. Fishing boats are notoriously slow, and doing
6 knots means hours of motoring. Newman fields phone calls
and attends to the radio while he puts together gear for the
next fishery.
Newman is joining the
handful of fishermen involved in the new slime eel fishery.
Hagfish are bottom dwellers that eat lots of invertebrates
and sick or dead fish that have settled to the ocean floor.
When alarmed, they emit huge amounts of slime. But they are
cuisine in
Korea
, and buyers have recently
set up shop on
Humboldt Bay
.
October will probably be
dedicated to slime eel fishing for Newman. Buckets get
lowered to the bottom, where slime eels are attracted to
bait. They then get hauled up like a crap pot. Newman plans
to flash freeze them on trays, then deliver them to the
buyer.
Newman expects he can
handle 6,000 pounds at a time. At 80 cents a pound, the crew
will get paid well, perhaps $600 a day.
Back at the Caito
Fisheries dock in
Eureka
, workers lowered a bin to
the Maria Isabel, and the salmon are piled in. The weigh-in:
382 pounds, or a 13-pound average. Caito is paying $6 a
pound, so Newman gets a check for $2,292. Inskeep gets 19
percent off the top, or $435 for a 12-to-13-hour day.
Other boats hadn't done
nearly as well. One reported having only four fish by
mid-afternoon. Another caught his limit of fish averaging 19
pounds, some 570 pounds.
If fishermen are always
looking forward to the next season to open, they are also
always looking ahead to next year. What will 2008's salmon
season bring?
Most of the salmon
commercial fishermen catch are born in the
Sacramento River
. But because stocks mix in
the ocean, regulators often clamp down on how many salmon
can be caught altogether to protect more scarce
Klamath River
fish, even if there are
large numbers of
Sacramento
fish.
Marc Heisbors, an
associate marine biologist with Fish and Game said that
predictions about next year's salmon crop out of the
Central Valley
will be made soon. But
things don't look good. The primary indicator for what to
expect next year are the number of 2-year-old chinook that
come into the Sacramento, which give a clue to how many fish
would be available at a mature 3-years-old in the ocean.
”Last year there was a
really low 2-year-old return to the
Central Valley
,” Heisbors said.
Such is fishing.
There are huge
investments in boats, permits, gear, fuel and crews, and the
return hinges on what nature will deliver. There are no
guarantees and no refunds.
John Driscoll can be
reached at 441-0504 or jdriscoll@times-standard.com.
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