NEAH BAY — Tribal fishermen may be pushed further out to sea to avoid violating a new federal ban on trawling at depths between 600 and 1,500 feet deep.
The ban, enacted by the Pacific Fishery Management Council late Friday, is the strictest regulation of West Coast fishing in history and promises to affect coastal economies already hurting from restrictions on logging and salmon fishing.
The ban is an effort to protected depleted groundfish stocks — bocaccio, yellow-eye, canary and dark blotched.
Groundfish include more than 80 species, many of which have healthy populations.
Friday’s ruling also requires anglers with fixed gear — such as longlines and traps — to fish deeper than 600 feet off the Washington coast.
The council also restricted recreational fishing daily bag limits to 10 rockfish, with no more than two canary rockfish and no yelloweye rockfish in Washington.
———————-
The rest of the story appears in the Sunday Peninsula Daily News. Click on SUBSCRIBE to get the PDN delivered to your home or office.