By Sara Hall
There are some changes in regulations related to commercial fishing coming down the pike for Pacific Coast states next year.
While many rule-setting processes don’t follow the calendar year, some regulation changes or program amendments have already been adopted this year or are expected in the upcoming season.
Fishermen’s News reached out to officials in California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska and Hawaii to find out some of the new rules and regulations that may impact commercial fishers working in Pacific waters in the upcoming season.
Alaska
At the state level, while some fishing regulation changes come directly from the state’s Department of Fish and Game, the majority go through the Alaska Board of Fisheries. As of early fall, the board had yet to discuss regulatory proposals.
On Sept. 2, the Alaska Board of Fisheries announced that its 2024-25 Proposal Book is now available online. The board accepted 311 proposals for review during its Prince William Sound finfish/shellfish, Southeast/Yakutat finfish/shellfish and Statewide Shellfish regulatory meetings.
NFMS proposed a rule to implement amendment 126 to the Fishery Management Plan for groundfish of the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands Management Area and amendment 114 to the FMP for groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska.
The rule makes an electronic monitoring program an option for participants in the partial and full-coverage observer categories, with pelagic trawl pollock catcher vessels and tender vessels delivering to shoreside processors and stationary floating processors in the specified areas.
The rule went into effect Aug. 28.
NMFS issued a final rule to implement amendment 113 to the FMP for the groundfish of the Gulf of Alaska. This rule modifies specific provisions of the Central Gulf of Alaska Rockfish Program to change the season start date, remove the catcher vessel cooperative quota cap and revise the processing and harvesting caps.
This final rule changes the start date for this fishery from May 1 to April 1 to enhance flexibility for processing plants and vessel operators. It also increases the use cap for rockfish processors from 30% to 40% of the catcher vessel quota share pool for rockfish primary species, Pacific cod and sablefish.
The change went into effect Sept. 16.
California
At its August meeting, the California Fish and Game Commission adopted proposed regulations related to commercial halibut and white seabass set gill nets to address potential bycatch concerns in the state.
The new regulations will require a maximum service interval, or soak time, of 48 hours, and orange-colored gear marking while establishing a maximum net-height limit, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Senior Environmental Scientist Amanda Van Diggelen explained.
The rule was adopted Aug. 14, but it has yet to be reviewed by the Office of Administrative Law. At press time, the effective date was still pending.
The proposed regulations establish a service interval for checking or raising set gill nets. They also require marking of gear to address concerns related to unidentified set gill net gear involved in marine mammal entanglements. Mesh depth must be defined for California halibut or white seabass to potentially reduce bycatch and prevent the expansion of set gill net gear.
Service intervals are proposed to include a range to be decided through the commission public noticing process of 24-to-48 hours.
Exemptions are proposed to be considered in cases where a permittee might not be able to comply with the regulation due to unsafe weather conditions or catastrophic events.
A timeframe of seven consecutive days is suggested for consideration of abandonment without servicing, cleaning or otherwise raising the net if there is no approved exemption.
A requirement is also proposed for permittees to incorporate a one-inch wide, one-foot-long colored nylon strap weaved into the existing head rope. The recommended marking interval for the straps along the headrope is proposed for 20 fathoms.
There are currently no CDFW standards for the maximum net height (also known as mesh depth) for either species. The new rule proposes a maximum of 25 meshes deep for the California halibut fishery and a maximum of 50 meshes deep for white seabass.
Also in August, Fish and Game adopted proposed regulations to update and define areas of commercial marine fishing activity and associated forms and logbooks, Van Diggelen said. The improvements, she explained, aim to better document fishing locations and reported catch to support effective fishery management.
The revisions to state code related to marine logbooks and fishing block charts were adopted Aug. 14 and filed with the Administrative Law office on Oct. 3, but a decision had yet to be made at the time of publication, on the effective date.
According to the statement of reasons for regulatory action, the aim is to improve issues in the current version of the charts, including fishing blocks that overlap with blocks of another scale, leading to inconsistent reporting and poor resolution of location. Blocks with pool alignment with the southern border also cause some confusion when U.S. catch cannot be distinguished from Mexican catch.
Van Diggelen noted that the National Marine Fisheries Service recently announced a proposed rule setting harvest limits and management measures for the 2025-2026 recreational and commercial groundfish fisheries off the West Coast. It is anticipated that the final rule will be effective on or around Jan. 1.
According to NOAA Fisheries, the proposed rule is an amendment to the Pacific Coast Groundfish Fishery Management Plan. Amendment 33 proposes 2025–2026 harvest specifications and management measures intended to prevent overfishing and keep the total annual catch of each groundfish stock or stock complex within the annual catch limits.
If approved, the proposed rule also would establish a rebuilding plan for California quillback rockfish and revise the allocation framework for shortspine thornyhead.
NOAA Fisheries announced in December 2023 that the quillback rockfish off California is overfished. The finding was reported to Pacific Fishery Management Council so that both groups can work on a rebuilding plan to return the stock to a healthy population size.
Although the rebuilding plan isn’t legally required to be implemented for two years, moving ahead with 2025-26
management measures without it would make it challenging to approve the specifications, NMFS officials explained.
In January, CDFW proposed emergency changes for the commercial nearshore groundfish fishery. The Office of Administrative Law approved the new regulations which went into effect on Feb. 12 for 180 days.
The action created a California Groundfish Restriction Area and established new trip limits for the commercial take of both shallow and deeper nearshore rockfish (except quillback), and California scorpionfish in state waters outside of the restricted area.
An extension was approved to take effect until Nov. 12, and CDFW plans to request another 90-day re-adoption to extend the regulation into early 2025.
The initial emergency regulations established a 20-fathom boundary line approximating the 20-fathom depth contour because available fishery data indicate quillback rockfish off California are infrequently encountered in waters shallower than 20 fathoms.
The boundary line was re-adopted and available for use in management for both the commercial and recreational groundfish fisheries, as needed.
Oregon
There are a few changes to the Tillamook Bay clam fisheries, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife State Fishery Management Program Leader Troy Buell said.
The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission approved revised rules on April 19.
The action closed commercial harvest of intertidal cockle clams on weekends and state and federal holidays. A temporary rule adopted in February was meant to reduce conflict between commercial and recreational clam diggers. The commission’s vote in April made it permanent.
Annual catch limits were also adjusted (from the temporary thresholds to the newly approved numbers) for commercial harvest of subtidal clams (i.e., dive fishery), based on updated stock assessment surveys. Cockle is decreased from 185,000 pounds to 110,000 pounds; gaper is increased from 235,000 pounds to 260,000 pounds, and butter is increased from 225,000 pounds to 260,000 pounds.
The new rules went into effect April 23.
On Sept. 1, the commission adopted regulations for the ocean commercial Dungeness crab fishery, including revisions to the Tri-State pre-season testing protocol. There are also line marking requirements to help identify gear involved in marine life entanglements and electronic monitoring requirements for crab vessels to transit closed areas.
The revised rules require crabbers to use bi-colored black and yellow line in certain parts of the gear to help track where fishery gear involved in whale entanglements came from, Buell explained.
They go into effect Dec. 1, 2026 for all line used in surface gear and above the main buoy, excluding buoy gangions. For the top 15 fathoms of vertical line below the main buoy, it’s effective Dec. 1, 2028.
Through Aug. 15, 2033, crabbers may use solid marks of two feet yellow within six inches of 2 feet of black as a substitute for bi-colored line. One set of marks is required between any two buoys on the surface gear, and three sets are required in the top 15 fathoms of line about at the top middle and bottom, with the same effective dates. Methods for making solid marks aren’t specified.
The new regulations prohibit marks required in any West Coast fishery from being used in another fishery to avoid attributing gear to the wrong fishery.
Buell also noted that at the December meeting, ODFW staff planned to recommend reducing bi-monthly vessel limits for black rockfish in response to a 2023 federal stock assessment that will reduce federal annual catch limits by about 35% starting in 2025.
Details of the reduction level recommendations are not yet public.
A stock assessment was completed in early 2024 on the Pacific sardine, ODFW Nearshore Policy and Coastal Pelagic Species Fisheries Project Leader Greg Krutzikowsky said. Officials were expecting new fishery regulations based on that assessment, but the previously adopted sardine rebuilding plan was challenged in court, putting the 2024-2025 regulations on hold, he noted.
Basically, Krutzikowsky explained, the court ruled that there are some portions of the sardine rebuilding plan that need to vacated. Those sections must be rewritten, reviewed and in place by June 2025.
To comply with remedy orders issued in June and July last year by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in Oceana, Inc., v. Raimondo, et al., NMFS was directed to implement interim regulations that are no less restrictive than the 2023-2024 specifications.
Pursuant to the order, a rule went into effect July 29 that re-instates limits that were in place for the 2023-2024 fishing year. That includes an overfishing limit of 5,506 metric tons; acceptable biological catch and annual catch limit of 3,953 mt, and an annual catch target of 3,600 mt.
This also temporarily re-instates certain management measures for commercial sardine harvest. They include closing the primary directed commercial fishery; if landings in the live bait fishery reach 2,500 mt of Pacific sardine, applying a 1 mt per-trip limit of sardine to the live bait fishery and an incidental per-landing limit of 20% by weight of Pacific sardine to other coastal pelagic species (CPS) primary directed fisheries (e.g., Pacific mackerel); if the ACT of 3,600 mt is attained, then a 1 mt per-trip limit of Pacific sardine landings would apply to all CPS fisheries; an incidental per-landing allowance of 2 mt of Pacific sardine would apply to non-CPS fisheries until the ACL is reached.
The interim rules are expected to remain in effect until the 2024-25 annual specifications are adopted.
An update to the stock assessment is planned for 2025 and there is some uncertainty regarding how that will be affected by the results of the lawsuit and the rebuilding plan, he added.
Based off a stock assessment done in 2023, the 2024-2025 Pacific mackerel fishing season harvest specifications have increased since the previous season.
The allowable harvest levels for 2024-2025 include: Overfishing limit of 12,765 mt; an acceptable biological catch and annual catch limit of 10,073 mt; a harvest guideline of 8,943 mt, and an annual catch target of 7,943 mt.
If the fishery attains the annual catch target, the directed fishery will close, reserving the 1,000-mt difference between the harvest guideline and annual catch target as a set-aside for incidental landings in other coastal pelagic species fisheries and other sources of mortality.
In 2025, ODFW anticipates that there will be a catch-only projection, Krutzikowsky said.
New harvest specifications will be set in June 2025, reviewed by PFMC, and the recommendations sent to NMFS to implement, he explained.
NMFS issued a final rule and revised the overfishing limit and acceptable biological catch for the central subpopulation of northern anchovy (CSNA) in the U.S. exclusive economic zone off the West Coast under the Coastal Pelagic Species Fishery Management Plan; the change is to 243,779 mt and 60,945 mt, respectively. This final rule also maintains an annual catch limit of 25,000 mt for CSNA.
It went into effect May 20.
At its September meeting, the PFMC adopted a preliminary 2025 Catch Sharing Plan and annual regulations. It included a number of options for the structure of the non-Tribal directed commercial Pacific halibut fishery.
The council is in the process of soliciting public input on specific proposals to the Pacific halibut Catch Sharing Plan, ODFW Groundfish and Halibut Assistant Project Leader Melanie Bukovec said.
“There are a handful of proposed changes to the CSP that we will be seeking feedback on, and they mainly focus on providing more flexibility for our fishery and simplifying the process to set up the Pacific halibut seasons,” Bukovec said.
In response to requests from the groundfish advisory subpanel and the salmon advisory subpanel, the council directed NMFS to explore options, in addition to status quo, for the fishery that would improve flexibility, including:
Increasing the landing limits for the first two or three periods of the directed commercial halibut fishery; announcing the potential first three fishing periods prior to the start of the directed halibut fishery; structuring the first three fishing periods preferably with two weeks in between each opener; moving the permit deadlines later in the year per the recommendation in the advisory subpanel report, and considering a longer fishing period, up to 24 hours.
Once the fishing quota is set in January 2025, ODFW will again seek public input to set up the season dates, which will be finalized in April 2025, Bukovec explained.
Washington
With the 2024 salmon season still in progress, officials didn’t have any information for 2025 available at the time of publication, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesman Mark Yuasa said.
Post-season recreational and commercial fishery and forecast information will be compiled in December, but not finalized until early 2025, he said.
The season-setting process to plan for the fisheries in the Evergreen State is known as the North of Falcon. The conferences for the upcoming season, a series of meetings conducted by NOAA, the PFMC and WDFW, will start in early 2025; they typically culminate in late spring. At the end of those meetings all the new state commercial (and recreational) fishing seasons will be set, including tribal fisheries.
In a report on Sept. 19, officials provided information on stock status determinations.
The report noted that the Strait of Juan de Fuca (SJF) and Queets natural coho salmon stocks are rebuilt, consistent with Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act criteria.
The most recent three-year geometric mean of the spawning escapement reported for both stocks (2020-22) exceeds the stocks’ spawning escapement required to achieve SSBMSY (spawning-stock biomass at maximum sustainable yield). Spawning escapement reported for SJF coho is 14,461, notably more than what’s required to achieve SSBMSY, 11,000 spawners. For Queets coho, reported at 6,624 compared to the SSBMSY of 5,800 spawners.
According to the report, NMFS proposes to remove the rebuilding plans for both stocks from regulation. They anticipate the proposed rule to remove the plans should be published in the Federal Register in advance of the 2025 salmon season.
Hawai’i
In December 2023, the Hawaii Board of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) approved amendments to the Hawaii Administrative Rules chapter on “regulating the taking and selling of certain marine resources.” The action covered practices for fishing specific herbivorous reef fish (manini, kole, kala and uhu) and Kona crab.
The new regulations were included in the state’s fishing regulation booklet in May.
For commercial fisheries, the amendment establishes new restrictions on the commercial harvest and sale of kala (bluespine unicornfish), including requiring commercial kala fishers to obtain a $100 annual commercial kala fishing permit; setting a commercial annual catch limit (ACL) for kala of 15,000 pounds, and requiring commercial marine dealers who sell kala to register with the Department of Land and Natural Resources.
The action also established similar restrictions on the commercial harvest and sale of uhu (parrotfish), including the requirement to obtain a $100 commercial uhu fishing permit and for commercial marine dealers who sell uhu to register with the DLNR. It prohibits the commercial harvest of any uhu species other than scarus rubroviolaceus (redlip parrotfish) and sets a commercial ACL for uhu of 30,000 pounds.
The DLNR Division of Aquatic Resources is also in the process of implementing a new optional commercial marine vessel license, Communications Director Dan Dennison said in September.
The new license was approved by the Board of Land and Natural Resources at its Jan. 12 meeting and included in the fishing regulations booklet published in May.
The fee for the issuance or renewal of a commercial marine vessel license is $100 for any vessel less than 22 feet in length that is not used for longline fishing; $200 for any vessel 22 feet in length or greater that is not used for longline fishing. and $1,500 for any vessel used for longline fishing.
Officials are proposing establishing boundaries and rules for a new Fisheries Management Area on the island of Oahu.
The aim is to create long-term sustainable fishing within Maunalua Bay and protect ecologically critical and socially important marine life while minimizing impacts to sustainable fishing. The rules would allow for conducting data collection and monitoring to inform fisheries management and developing an inclusive stakeholder-endorsed and science-based decision-making process. These rules will prohibit the take of five invertebrate species (‘alakuma, horned helmet, Triton’s trumpet, ula and ula pāpapa) and prohibit spearfishing at night.
Sara Hall has 15 years of experience at several regional and national magazines, online news outlets, and daily and weekly newspapers, where coverage has included reporting on local harbor activities, marine-based news, and regional and state coastal agencies. Her work has included photography, writing, design and layout.