A week from tomorrow starts the Thanksgiving holiday week, but it also marks an important day for fishermen in San Diego and throughout California.
It is on that day, Nov. 24, that the Department of Fish and Game and the two groups that sued them over the state's fish-stocking program are due back in court.
It is on that day that DFG officials must prove to the Center for Biological Diversity and the Pacific Rivers Council and a Sacramento Superior Court judge that it won't stock fish in waters that might impact 27 “sensitive native aquatic and amphibian species” identified in a lawsuit the two nonprofit groups prevailed on in 2007.
In the meantime, the DFG must complete an environmental impact review for its entire fish-stocking program by Jan. 10, 2010.
It is also on that potential manic Monday of Thanksgiving week when two independent sport boat owners, Frank D'Anna of the Dominator and Greg Miser of the Dolphin II, learn whether they will continue to operate out of Mission Bay Sportfishing, formerly Islandia Sportfishing.
A little more than a month ago, officials managing the Hyatt Mission Bay Spa and Marina ordered all five sport boats docked there to vacate by yesterday. Three of them did, but D'Anna and Miser are fighting the order to leave.
Yes, they are unconnected issues in the sense that one is a court case involving freshwater fish, one of many slapped on the helpless and overmatched DFG. The other case is a corporate owner vs. two private contractors involving a corporation with no heart beating up on two hard-working fishermen.
D'Anna and Miser are trying to stay in business at a landing that, at least now, has no connection to the ever-growing sportfishing monopoly and octopus that is Fisherman's Landing, Point Loma Sportfishing and Seaforth Sportfishing, which share some of the same owners.
But these two cases – the trout and the landing – are intertwined in that both have to do with fishing options, and that's why we should pay attention.
Starting with the DFG and the fate of the state's fish-stocking program, fishermen may be in for some shocking news, particularly in the Eastern Sierra, come spring.
Last week, Neil Manji, the DFG's fisheries branch chief, went from completely shutting down all fish stocking to reversing field and allowing hatcheries to run and trout to go out.
A conference call involving the DFG and the two environmental groups produced a compromise and allowed the DFG, as Manji said, to “chip away” and allow for trout stockings at Southern California's man-made reservoirs.
What's sad about this case is that the DFG has known this was coming for years. They have been studying mountain yellow-legged frogs in the Eastern Sierra for so long that the department has warts clear up its fisheries branch. Some in the DFG took this stuff seriously, and some didn't. Now the DFG is paying the price, or worse, and the state's fishermen who pay hard-earned money for fishing licenses may get the worst of it by not having stocked trout in some traditionally stocked waters in the Eastern Sierra.
We wait with Power Baited breath for the outcome of this one.
As for the Mission Bay Sportfishing case. This one is sad.
Listening to the three captains who have bailed and moved to other docks, it was clear these men had found their perfect place to work and fish. But it all was taken away by the Hyatt. To this day, Hyatt officials have not given a reason why these boats were ordered to leave.
Was it the money? Was it the stinky deck boots up in the coffee and bagel shop? What?
As owners of the marina, the Hyatt has the right to do what it wants with its dock slips. If the sport boats weren't making the Hyatt enough money, and a long string of private yachts in those same dock spaces will provide higher revenue, then sure, that's understandable.
Understandable, but that doesn't make it right how the Hyatt dismantled a landing with more than half a century of history, shattered lives by giving these good, honest boat owners 30 days to untie their ropes.
Thanksgiving week, we'll know more, whether to give thanks for trout in our reservoirs and streams, whether to be thankful that a historical sportfishing landing stays open with a couple of good boats.
That, or cut bait and go eat turkey.
Ed Zieralski: (619) 293-1225; ed.zieralski@uniontrib.com
