Posted by mike on June 21, 2002 at 12:55:32:
In Reply to: Rockfish closure posted by Ken Kurtis on June 21, 2002 at 11:00:32:
Milton Love up at UCSB is probably the world's foremost authority on the local Sebastes sp. According to his book "Probably More Than You Want to Know About the Fishes of the Pacific Coast", most of the rockfishes take between 4-9 years to mature, so the population in sheer numbers could recover surprisingly fast. It'd be the really big lunkers, the 24 to 30 inchers that'd take long to reapear (altho i did see one off the front side of Sta Cruz last year)
As for spearfishing, well, i guess it's the camera instead of the Riffe that'll get a workout at San Miguel for a while...sigh. It's a price i'm willing to pay.