Fish Sniffer On Demand Digital Edition Issue 3909 April 10-24 | Page 22
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April 10-24, 2020
VOL.39 • ISS. 9
Spotlight On Kayak Fishing...
Sponsered by
Kayak City
in Citrus Heights, CA
Kayak City.Com
916.565.1400
Commercial Fishing
From A Kayak!
By Kevin Hofer
Always looking for a new adventure and challenge, it was about this time
last year I started doing my research on commercial fishing.
Living along the coast and having easy access to some very fishy waters, I
thought, why not, I’ll give it a try. If it were only that easy…
To just “give it a try”! I spent countless hours reading regulations trying
to figure out what I could keep and sell, and how much. Many of my friends
think that the sport
fishing regulations are
hard to understand
at times, they pale
in comparison to the
commercial ones.
After multiple trips to
the district office and
having face to face chats
with wardens, phone calls
and emails to Eureka,
Sacramento and even
someplace down south.
I was finally getting all
my questions answered
about the what’s when’s
where’s how’s and how
many.
By the time, April rolled around I was ready to go. My Radar 135 was
registered commercial at both DMV and with DFW (yes, I got a few odd looks
during that process when I said my boat is a kayak).
I had my commercial fishing license, fish retail business license, and a
commercial scale inspected and approved by the department of weights
and measures. Ready to fish one might think, or at least hope, but no. I had
to do an over the phone course on how to properly log all the data of fish
caught onto the website.
So, I got all my ducks in a row and I’m ready to go, now to just wait for
the wind to stop blowing.
Finally, the day came where I saw a brief window in the forecast to get
out there before the afternoon spring howling winds pick up.
The bite was good for a while and then started to slow just as the
whitecaps began to come out. I was happy though and ready to come in
from my inaugural trip, I had a decent stringer of good market sized fish.
I have to admit it was a strange feeling keeping more lingcod than 2, and
on shore I heard multiple times people telling me you know what the limit
is
right?
None
assumed
a kayak
fisherman
was a
commercial
fisherman.
I’d tell
them,
“That’s not
the limit
for me…
would you
like to buy
one?”
When the
eyes open wide and, in their mind, I’m assuming they are already thinking of
calling DFW on me, I tell them the story.
Weeks of windy nasty conditions went by before I was able to get back out on
the water. When I finally did get out the lingcod bite was slow and the ones I
caught were not of commercial length.
I struggled for a few trips in a row before finally getting back into my groove
and catching some fish to help pay for all the licensing etc. It’s funny how when
I was sport fishing years past it seemed I would catch tons of lings, but when
trying to strictly target them I would only catch rockfish I couldn’t keep.
As the months went by and the year came to an end, I look back now on my
adventure and have
such a new respect
for all the commer-
cial fisherman out
there today, manly
of whom their
entire income is
based off fishing.
Think it was frus-
trating for me when
I couldn’t get out
due to weather or
when I couldn’t get
a bite… Imagine
your mortgage
payment riding
on it!
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