Noyo Harbor Confidential

by Jim Martin

Hot spell! What a scorcher last weekend was here on the coast. With the warm air came calm ocean conditions, allowing me to sneak in an abalone dive at Caspar Beach on Monday evening. The low, minus tide came a little after dark and so I scrambled to get my gear together and jump in the water before I lost the daylight. On the way I saw one of our many competent marine wardens parked right where he should be at any minus tide: at a turnoff overlooking a public coastal access. I asked him to remind me how long after sunset I had to get my abs, and he provided me with the exact time — a half-hour after sunset — down to the minute. I liked that.

With a scant hour to find an ab or two, I crossed Caspar beach and was really sweating with the 5 mil neoprene suit and the 30 pound lead weight belt around my waist. Man, that water felt good once I entered it. I paddled my way along the north side of the cove, not really expecting to find anything close in because this is a heavily used area. The visibility was excellent because the seas had been calm for several days. There is a sheer rock ledge along that north side of the cove, with a thick bed of eel grass wafting back and forth in the intertidal zone. I did couple of shallow dives and saw the rock ledge hit bottom in clean white sand. Further out, I found three quick "clickers" — small abalone that just barely clicked against the gauge and made the size limit. I put them in my dive bag and continued to poke around while I had daylight. The sun was still above the South Caspar Headlands, angling into the north side of the cove like Hollywood lighting up the corals and pale green anemone and bright green eel grass swaying with the surge of the ocean. In some places I found what appeared to be the rusting remains of the old Caspar Mill and landing on the sea floor. As the light dimmed I became a little more mindful of the recent white shark sightings in the area. Aware that low-light conditions make for excellent working hours for apex predators, I paddled — quietly — back to shore.

Fishing report: the rockfish and assorted bottomfish "are eating the paint off the bottom of the boat." Local paint stores report that boat-bottom paint is flying off the shelves. One salmon landed that I heard about last week, and earlier reports of salmon being released on the party boats while bottomfishing.

Further to the south, Half Moon Bay anglers reported respectable numbers of albacore tuna showing up at the Guide, and other locations offshore, last weekend. It may have been the last hurrah for our recreational tuna fleet south of the Golden Gate.

On the regulatory front, the number-crunchers at Department of Fish and Game are scratching their heads over the "new, improved" recreational catch monitoring data, which estimates that in three months, the skiff anglers have landed about 800 metric tons of rockfish in three months. A skiff is defined as any vessel under 25 feet in length. This enormous number excludes the charter vessel catch. The "poindexters" — as we fondly refer to our Fish and Game biologists and statisticians — know the number is wacky; the sporties and party boat captains know the number is bullshit, but the question remains open as to how to get an accurate estimate on recreational rockfish landings for the health of the fishery. In my anecdotal experience, the rockfishing has been great this year, ever since they capped the number of commercial livefish permits and shut the rec season down for seasonal closures during the last couple of years.

So, to whom does the Department of Fish & Game turn for a handle on recreational effort over the last three months? The Coastside Fishing Club! That's right, they have asked the Club to gather data from its member's personal logbooks and fishing reports (posted at www.coastsidefishingclub.com) to ground-truth the funky numbers. Coastside volunteers have even set up a simple survey webpage for Club members to log their landings. Time is tight, because the Commission and the Pacific Fisheries Management Council has to make a decision by November 7th on whether to shut the whole rockfishing season down, once again, in an emergency closure. I'll be headed down to San Diego, or what's left of it, next week, to report on the Pacific Fisheries Management Council meeting for Recreational Fishing Alliance and Coastside members.

Craig Bell, longtime north coast fisheries activist, reports that pink salmon are returning to the Garcia River for the second year running. He credits the returns to extensive habitat restoration along the Garcia River for the returns. He gave me a copy of a recent report he prepared for Trout Unlimited and the Department of Fish and Game, called "Evaluation of Garcia River Restoration with Recommendations for Future Projects. (May 2003)" It charts the cooperative efforts between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, Trout Unlimited, Department of Fish and Game, local landowners such as the Stornetta Dairy and the Mendocino Redwood Company to begin erosion control and instream habitat assessment on the Garcia. The results, as recorded in Bell's report with before-and-after photos, are striking. Livestock was fenced out of the lower Garcia basin and shelter brush planted along the banks; it's like night and day. Bell landed and released a massive, twenty-pound wild steelhead in the lower Garcia last year.

Bell's report makes clear that the hatchery and habitat argument does not have to be "either-or." Chinook salmon, now extinct in the Garcia, are being proposed for reintroduction to the river by planting similar strains from nearby watersheds. Good work, Craig!

I should have mentioned this earlier, but on September 22nd, the State Health Director put a quarantine on the consumption of sport-harvested sardines, anchovies, and bivalve shellfish such as clams and mussels, taken from the Monterey Bay region, because of possible contamination with demoic acid, a naturally-occurring neurotoxin produced by microscopic algae.

This is in addition to the annual, summer-long quarantine on sport-harvest of mussels throughout California. The state-wide quarantine on recreational harvest on mussels is lifted at midnight, October 31st. Attention, Trick-or-Treaters! Accept no mussels in your bag until the stroke of midnight!

Got a fishing report, story, recipe, or a comment? Email me at jim@noyoharborconfidential.com or call 707-964-8326.