Without really reviewing the 2023 CDFW Groundfish regulations, I knew one major change for this year was that they would be restricting some of the moderate depth rockfishing available to Southern California anglers this year, but in return open up other deep water opportunities. With this in mind, I posted a request for information on my personal facebook page asking about black cod or sablefish (below).
I’ll come back to sablefish…but the post sparked a larger discussion of what’s new/different this year. I’m not going to geek out and deep dive the new regulations, but here are some key takeaways.
The Season Isn’t Starting Next Month
Wait what? Yes, that’s correct. As in next week. Ain’t happening.
We’ve become accustomed in the Southern Management Area (south of Point Conception) to starting rockfish season (and really kicking off the fishing season in general) on March 1st. It actually doesn’t start until until April 1st this year!
What this means practically in terms of the sportboats is TBD. A longer “Colonet season” perhaps? They haven’t been particularly successful in terms of yellowtail, but the rockfishing has been good. Just getting out and going rockfishing on these longer trips, or day trips into Mexican water to rockfish (like what the New Seaforth is doing now), may be the staple of the sportboat menu for March. Local boats will continue to do sculpin and bass trips. The rest of the boats…if anything, it’ll probably be bluefin that gets them off the dock.
Bag Sub-Limits
Not new, but worth mentioning are the sub-limits of certain species. This rule kicked in last year and continues for 2023. Out of your 10 rockfish daily bag limit, only one can be a copper (aka chucklehead) and 4 can be vermilions (aka reds). Lingcod remains at 2.
No Depth Limit
When the season does open on April 1st, there will be NO DEPTH LIMIT. This is where black cod or sablefish maybe comes into play. I found out from some guys that commercially fish them that they are DEEP.
How deep do you say Joe?
This is my buddy Dennis Leung. This was in Sitka, Alaska last year in June (just after we did the panga bluefin trip). Dennis said he caught this black cod in about a 1200 feet of water. He used an electric reel (boat provided). I had an interest in them because he said it was delicious and I knew about this rule change coming. The commercial guys I talked to here said anywhere from 300 to 600 FATHOMS…so 1800 to 3600 feet deep. They don’t put up a big fight, but you need a lot of line. No sportboat owners chimed in on my thread, so the viability of doing it seems pretty sketchy. Is there cool stuff to get at a more reasonable depth? I guess we’ll all find out together.
The Late Season Closure
The picture above is from the Eldorado last December. I got that lingcod in about 200 feet of water, but we spent the bulk of the day around 100-120 feet. I had a blast throwing jigs and plastics…opened up the toybox. I was really enjoying myself when my friend and crewmember, Greg “Stumpy” Tate made the comment…
“Enjoy it while you can! We won’t be doing this next year.”
Greg was referring to the late season closure taking place this year from Sept 16th through to the opener for 2024. CDFW has made a sub-group of rockfish species that they categorized as “Nearshore Rockfish.” These include: black, black and yellow, blue, brown, calico, China, copper, gopher, grass, kelp, olive and quillback rockfish and also treefish. For all the other species the regs state:
Take is prohibited shoreward of the 50 Fathom (300 feet) Rockfish Conservation Area boundary line…”
So this regulation is really going to change the gameplan for San Nicolas and the Eldorado, as well as, sportfishing fleet fishing up in Channel Islands AND it’s going to happen beginning in the Fall when we often start to think about rockfishing again after our Summer fishing.
It’s a pretty radical change from what we’ve become accustomed to for sure. Maybe it’s time to start thinking about that electric reel… Speaking of new fishing gear, so instead of going out for the opener next week, I’ll be at the PCS Show. I’ll be in the Fishing Syndicate booth on Thursday, March 2nd and then bopping around the show on Friday. Come by and say hi.
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