Tipping The Scales

Gwen: Hi! I am Gwen Schoen with the Sacramento Bee with the closing of Salmon season this year, a lot of the commercial fishermen are having some problems trying to make ends meet and develop some new fishing techniques. And today, Brett Little of Little Fish Company in Northern California has invited us to join him as he spends a day in the San Francisco bay fishing for Halibut.

Brett: My name is Brett Little I am the owner and captain of the fishing vessels fair seas out of San Francisco, California. Right now, we are just outside of the city over on the Berkley side of the bay fishing hooking line for Halibut. All of the salmon closures, this time of the year we would be out fishing Salmon. The depleted stocks of the salmon have forced a lot of us into exploring other options not necessary to make money, but there is maintenance on these boats and storage on these boats. And a lot of us are just trying to pay our slip fees and pay for maintenance on the boats. These boats have to be hold out every year. And so there are not a lot of fisheries off to coast to California or what we call limited entry, meaning you have to have a special permit for that fishery. There is only a few what we call open access fisheries. How the being one of them in past that has not been targeted. Mostly, due to the fact that numbers are low, the methods used to catch them are it is traditionally a sport fishery, meaning guys going out for fun, would go out and catch them. The commercial flee, you see more and more boats out here, trying to make a buck and these guys have not really done it so there using sport methods to try and catch these fish.

These guys who try to keep them alive, so we actually set the ice in and put them in the live tank. All right, we are on our way back again we spent the morning out on San Francisco Bay. We are only able to get one fish in a boat, probably about an eight pound Halibut, which does not really even cover the cost of fuel or bate to be out here. So, usually you know we would like to get at least two or three fish, it helps us pay for a three-day trip. And then, you know you get a few fish the next day and a few fish the day after that. You made couple of bucks that help that grow towards paying the storage on the boat and the maintenance on the boat. But sometimes you get them, sometimes you do not, today is a do not.

Oh yes, there is lots of guys that are not going to make it, you know it is a dying industry in it and itself. Most these guys are you know older, in their 60s and they have done this all their life. It is the only thing they know how to do. It is been getting harder and harder, but you know with recent closures, specifically the complete closure this year you know I have talked to a lot of them and they do not know what they are going to do and they probably will lose a boats and their houses and you know everything else.


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