Tuesday, January 9, 2024

     So, the crab report for today? "No crab!" from the one guy that went out. He may have been a little extra angry, as he and his buddy gave up on crab at low tide (as they weren't catching anything) and switched to clams. They dug up 12 clams, put them in a bag, and came in. The warden was waiting and gave them a ticket, as clams need to be kept in separate containers for each clammer. Fair? I decline to comment. But the law was changed recently and does say a single container for each fisherman. Not that it makes it cool, it just makes it illegal. Remember, folks, "fair" and "legal" are different words and terms and spelled and spoken differently for a reason. They often have nothing to do with each other. Now, CDFW finally changed the the ruled to make licenses 365 day ones instead of calendar-year, in order to make fishing more accessible and sell more licenses. The fact that the regulations make legal fishing so complicated obviously couldn't be a reason why why people decline to fish. It's nice that they made an App, and you can click a map to sort of know what's up (not perfect, like the rules) but it's still kind of scary trying to figure out if fishing on a particular body of water on a certain day is legal. It could be simpler. But then again, if everybody did it we'd be overwhelmed. 

   So, on the crab front, it seems that CDFW is going to allow sport pots soon, as well as allowing commercial to open. Good for the commies, except they're limited to only 30% of their allotted gear. Remember, commercial crabbers have individual pot limits, and this year they get less than a third of that. It takes 300 crab pots to make ends meet? Okay, you get 90. Make it work. To be fair, they will. Not because they can so much as they will. Fishermen fish because they want to. They work at other jobs because they have to. Luckily for them, guys that want to work are still in demand, so finding a job outside of fishing isn't too hard. No commercial fisherman is afraid of hard work. They'd just rather fish. I think we can all sympathize. 

   Also, on a darker note, a petition to declare white sturgeon as endangered has been accepted by CDFW. Does any body want to bet on their decision? My guess is things will go bad. The legal things. Don't worry, they guys thinking dark things will be right, too. Nothing good comes from an endangered listing. I mean, not for fishermen, generally, as they are blamed for the failures of the fish, not the guys regulating the water the fish need to successfully spawn.  "That's different." Or not. Some fish require a fresh water river to spawn. Salmon, sturgeon, striper. Two out of three down.  If I was a striper (and read this report(small percentage of stripers)) I'd be worried. Just know that the powers that be have decided that agriculture is more important, especially the part that gets exported. Almonds, yeah! Salmon, f- off. It appears that sturgeon are also salmon, in the water wars. Gat ready, emotionally.

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