The spotter plane flew on December 10 and now a new California Department of Fish and Wildlife Initial Assessment of Marine Life Entanglement Risk and Preliminary Management Recommendation exists as a result. The CDFW staff recommends lifting the trap restriction in Zone 3 at 9:00 AM on December 16. They recommend commercials be allowed to drop gear on the 19th at 8:01 AM for the "pre-soak." The California Dungeness Crab Fishing Gear Working Group had differing opinions about opening and, as they are primarily comprised of commercial interests, their interest was in delaying the opening a bit until January 1, mostly. I don't know how much pushback was involved during the last couple of Working Group meetings but I do know that the Director went with the staff recommendation. There are still a few (more than a few?) "actionable species" around, so there's a decent chance the season may still get delayed. Either way, a pronouncement is extremely likely tomorrow. My guess is that the Director will go with the staff's recommendation and we will get to drop traps on Thursday morning (Not in the ocean. 10 to 12 foot swells will lock me in the bay for sure). The commercial fishermen could decide to postpone their start themselves in order to minimize the possibility of an interaction with an "actionable species." Or the fact that the fish processers and buyers are having the same luck finding employees as anybody else (which is not much). Luckily the world needs more drama. Tune in tomorrow to find out what happens....

    

   This just in. Matthew Vansickle reports: "My buddy Lenny and I (Matt) drove out from chico on friday, got limits of crab on fri, ate well! ½ limits on Saturday ,lost  3 hoops on the afternoon out going tide(oops), then on sunday found 1 hoop about a mile from where it was dropped, then (in the middle of talking about how it's too late in the year and the water cooled off too much) caught this halibut on a jig and lost a better one at the surface about 5 mins later. There is still schools of chovies from the landing down to hog ! Love camping at Lawsons and can't wait to come back!" Sorry you got Tomalesed Matthew, but nice job on the bugs and 'but! You'd think that with all those crab in the net it couldn't drag.