When Dave Smith, skipper of the Lisa Melinda out of Newport, heads out to fish for whiting, he worries about whether he'll be going back out the next day. Bycatch caps for four species of rockfish are so tight that a single bad tow can put a boat in the shoreside whiting sector out of commission for the rest of the season. "I have one pound of yelloweye bycatch quota, and that's not even the head of a fish that can weigh 15 pounds," said Smith. "And I'm not alone. There are a whole bunch of us who have only one or two pounds." Welcome to "zero tolerance" management. Fishermen in the shoreside sector have been shut down early in the season when one or two bad tows put them over the bycatch cap for any of four overfished species.But farther offshore, fishermen delivering to motherships this year found a way to dodge rockfish bycatch and lessen the chance of a draconian shutdown.
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