In Calif. they have what they call “Live Fishing”. If you"ve ever been in certain restaurants in the bay area you’ll know what I’m talking about. You pick your dinner out of an aquarium! The guys that do this type of fishing are for the most part “Weekend Warriors”. Truck drivers, house painters etc. They are required to have a commercial license. They launch small skiffs from shore and fish inside reefs They use a multiple hook system attached to a buoy. They put out several of these. A few years ago when this first got started alot guys thought this was pretty cool. A guy could with a small investment make a $100-300 a day. Back then there was no limit as to size or number on many of these small inshore fish. Here’s the problem. Big deepwater fish come out of the depths to spawn on shallower inshore reefs. The smaller fish of the inshore reefs are now in a livewell on there way to SF Chinatown and the Wharf. So what’s left for that big Lingcod to eat while spawning? Result— a fish with an empty stomach. And don’t get me started on Gilnets! I do find it interesting though that both of these techniques came from the Far
East after Veit Nam and fishermen and Govt. regulators didn’t have the forsight to see the devastation that these techniques would have on Cal. fisheries. Of course this would also result in disruption of the food chain. Add to this that you don’t dare do any thing that might affect an already too large a population of sea lions and the result is plentiful, healthy and aggressive sharks. McDing