The Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is opening a stretch of Georgia Strait to lingcod fishing this summer after a four-year closure.The open fishery will run June 1 to Sept. 30 from Sargeant Bay north through Powell River. The area running south from Trail Bay through Roberts Creek to Howe Sound will remain closed to lingcod fishing."Why we opened it is because we had completed an analysis that indicated that there is an abundance of lingcod," said DFO South Coast recreational fisheries co-ordinator Bill Shaw. "We had the area closed before because of low abundance. Now we're seeing a recruitment of young fish coming through." The opening will exclude current rockfish conservation areas (RCAs) - areas on the shore of Nelson Island, Thormanby Island and McNaughton Point on the Sunshine Coast. "We're also concerned about the abundance of rockfish in the Strait of Georgia because when you catch lingcod you catch rockfish," Shaw said."They closed lingcod down [in 2002] when they closed rockfish much to our protest," said Dave Sanford, chair of the Sport Fishing Advisory Board (SFAB) committee for the Sunshine Coast and Powell River, which makes recommendations to the DFO.Scientists out of Nanaimo conducted a population study a couple years ago, involving catching and tagging the lingcod."The conclusion of this report was that there was a lot more lingcod out there than the DFO thought there was but the DFO refused to open it," Sanford said. "The SFAB has been fighting with them for four years to try to get the opening again."This summer, fishers can now catch one lingcod per day and 10 lingcod per year, at a minimum of 65 cm, by hook and line only, according to a fishery notice. As well, outside the RCAs, fishers can catch one rockfish per day. But come September, the rockfish fishery will close along with the lingcod fishery."It will give us a chance to take a look at what the rockfish bycatch is during the lingcod fishery," Shaw said.The lingcod fishery will be monitored to allow a maximum sustainable summer catch of 5,000. If the 5,000 number is reached before September, the fishery would then close."We wanted to make sure that we stayed within the current level of impact," Shaw said."It's pretty good news for us," Stanford said. "We're not overly impressed with the fact we can't catch rockfish through the winter months but we're prepared to live with that. The important thing is that we do have a lingcod opening for the summer."The DFO has been working on expanding its RCAs, with the public consultation period ending April 30. The final areas will be announced this fall and implemented Feb. 1, 2007. On the Sunshine Coast, the proposed RCA closures would expand to include areas in Jervis Inlet, Malaspina Strait, Hotham Sound, Hardy Island, Sinclair Bank, Skookumchuck Narrows, Narrows Inlet and Salmon Inlet. RCAs allow recreational and commercial fishing of invertebrates by hand picking or diving; crab by trap; prawn by trap; and smelt by gillnet, in addition to commercial fishing of scallops by trawl; salmon by seine or gillnet; herring by gillnet seine and spawn-on-kelp; sardine by gillnet, seine and trap; krill by mid-water trawl; opal squid by seine; and groundfish by mid-water trawl, according to the DFO's website. First Nations are allowed to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes in RCAs.At its recent biannual meeting with the DFO, the SFAB recommended the new RCAs not be implemented until next year's fishing season, instead of in the middle of this year's season."We put a request in at our last meeting in Nanaimo that they do not impose those closures unless they can get adequate information out to the fishers, excluding just a website," Sanford said. "In other words, they had to have proper literature and proper circulation of the literature before they can implement the closures."The DFO accepted the recommendation and agreed to implement the new RCAs next year, which will allow the DFO time to organize regulations, Shaw said. The current and proposed new RCA maps are available at www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/recfish/Restricted_Areas/rca_e.htm or through local DFO offices.
