By Paul Lebowitz

October 5, 2007

VENTURA HARBOR - An eleventh hour ban on the use of hoop nets at Ventura Harbor spoiled the September 29 season opener for the area’s lobster hunters. Ventura County hooping options were further limited when nearby Channel Islands Harbor enacted tough new restrictions on the practice, the only legal way to collect the tasty crustaceans without diving.

Fishermen who’d been gearing up for the 2007 season were crushed by the news.
 
“It ripped my guts out. I bought a boat and spent the past two months fancying this thing up. It’s made for lobsters,” lamented Mike Thompson of Fisherman’s Tackle in Ventura.

The closure at Ventura was the work of Harbor Master Scott Miller. Citing safety, Miller established a 750 ft buffer zone around the harbor’s jetties and breakwaters.

“In 2006 we had a number of incidents. Two or three vessels capsized, a number ended up on the breakwall, and people ended up in the water,” Miller said. He further pointed to territorial conflicts between hoop netters and divers as justification for the closure, the first outright ban on hoop netting at any Southern California harbor.

Area hoop netters disagreed, suggesting that harbor management found it easier to chase everyone away rather than police the odd trouble maker.

“The average Joe isn’t the problem. This is due to lack of enforcement. I literally didn’t see them out there patrolling more than four or five times,” said Thompson, who claimed more than 40 nights of hooping during the 2006 season.

NO LOBSTER FOR YOU – Ventura Harbor hoop netters were put out of business just days prior to the hotly anticipated opener when Harbor Master Scott Miller established a 750 ft buffer zone around the harbor’s jetties and breakwaters. Here angry anglers take Miller and harbor police to task for cutting the public out of the decision.

Thompson suggested Miller exaggerated the severity of the accidents, calling them all near fatal. Not so, said Thompson, whose close friend was involved in one of the incidents.

MJ Kennedy of Port Hueneme, another frequent Ventura hooper, said he knows of two boats that ended up on the rocks. Both were on nights with extreme swells. The accidents could have been prevented if the Harbor Patrol had closed the area due to the hazardous conditions, as it often does. “We’re fine with closures on hazardous nights, nobody should be out there then,” Kennedy said.

Thompson had a real problem with the announcement of the closure just days before the opener. “They used last year’s problems to close us down. It’s pretty weird they didn’t talk about it right after the season,” Thompson said.

The Harbor’s unilateral action inspired a lot of frustration. “We can’t let this go down. Decisions made by the powers that be without public input are no good,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy questioned why the new regulations exempted divers. Harbor rules require every SCUBA diver to pull a permit and use a dive flag, but they are rarely enforced. If public safety on the jetties is truly at issue, contended Kennedy, then divers should have been included in the new restrictions.  

“They are all over hoop netters because we’re topside. It doesn’t seem fair they’re picking on us,” Thompson said.

Harbor Master Miller countered that no dive boats have gone on the rocks. “We don’t have statistical support to say they should be restricted,” Miller said.

Miller acknowledged that the failure to involve the public is a legitimate criticism. “We are thinking of ways to address that,” said Miller, who added that the ban could be amended fairly quickly. Miller plans to meet with representatives of the community on October 10.

In the meantime, Thompson said Fisherman’s Tackle and nearby businesses such as convenience stores, restaurants, gas stations and hotels are suffering from the ill-timed and arbitrary ban.

“It really hurts. It’s so bad, this business might not make it,” Thompson said. Hoop net products account for nearly 90 percent of the shop’s winter sales.

“We want them to implement reasonable rules. Something needs to be done,” Thompson urged.

Jim Salazar of Promar agreed. “I don’t think an overall closure is the way to go. It’s discriminatory; not everyone has an expensive boat to hoop offshore. There’s a middle ground to be had,” said Salazar, whose frequent seminars have made him the face of recreational lobstering in the state.

Salazar acknowledged the sport has exploded in popularity, putting a lot more people on the water at night. They tend to gather at breakwalls due to ease of access and high productivity. Rather than close them, Salazar would like to see new rules for hoop netting near a breakwall. Possibilities include fewer nets per boat, splitting the breakwall between divers and hoopers, and stringent enforcement.

Down the coast at Oxnard’s Channel Islands, Harbor Master Jack Peveler is doing just that. New this year, lobster hoop nets must be closely attended, no more than a few feet from a boat. Stray nets will be confiscated. They aren’t limited, however, to within 10 ft of a breakwall as some website postings inaccurately claimed.

“You can’t string them along the breakwall; they must be in close proximity,” Peveler said. He added that they didn’t want to ban lobster hooping. “We want people to enjoy themselves,” Peveler said.

As at Ventura, Thompson feels the new rules at Channel Islands are unreasonable and could cause unintended safety hazards. At Ventura they push novice skippers and small boats out into open water. Boaters hooping from anchor at Channel Islands risk being knocked into the wall by winter’s large swell and surge.