We have a couple of pretty serious situations happening in MA 3/4 for us bottomfishers that like to fish Neah Bay and Lapush during halibut seas and before.
FYI-I misinterpreted #66 before and it is a full on Rockfish Closure for Neah Bay other than black and blue rockfish (Seabass) and yellowtail rockfish. Both of these fish are large schooling migratory fish. Urgent you write in against these proposals. MA 4B was taken out to all other rockfish but Seabass and now it is written to remove the Bonilla Tatoosh line and manage MA4 with 4B. See photo
1. WDFW Proposal #66 is to close off all rockfish except black and blue rockfish in MA4. This needs to be sent in by everyone to stop this. WFC has written this proposal with Sierra Club Support and twisted info around and put it on their website taking rockfish catch information out of text and spinning it to say that it takes 35 "protected rockfish" (any rockfish in MA4B that are not seabass) to catch one lingcod. Also 32 Rockfish per Cabezon. See their site:
http://wildfishconservancy.org/about/pr ... d-rockfish
Please go here and tell them to not pass WDFW Proposal #66:
Marine area 4 has a very healthy supply of all kinds of rockfish and should not be managed as a Puget Sound Rock fishery and should be left to the people that work with WDFW to manage our ocean fisheries. This was already overturned a couple of years ago. It should removed as an option. About 85-90% of this region is already closed off to fishing through the 120’ line depth closure most of the year. I am attaching a picture of MA 4A and B to show how one tiny sliver of 4B is trying to manage the ocean MA4 gigantic underwater mountain ranges and canyons. They are full of fish and many areas that are unreachable to us.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations/ ... php?id=144
2. WDFW Proposal #65 Reduce lingcod season in MA 4B.
Please write in:
This area gets a strong return of Lingcod from the ocean. Lingcod are a large predator to rockfish and if we are trying to save Rockfish, leaving a voracious predator unchecked would be counterproductive About 85-90% of this region is already closed off to fishing for Lingcod through the 120’ line depth closure.
http://wdfw.wa.gov/fishing/regulations/ ... php?id=146