1. Memo of Robert Hight dated July 26, 2000. Your department has a memo by Robert Hight dated July 26, 2000 wherein he assesses a report from the PFMC suggesting that your department take action because harvest levels for bocaccio and lingcod are going to be exceeded. Robert Hight, the Director of DFG, says in his memo that, “It is apparent from our analysis that the MRFSS program lacks sufficient precision to be used for in-season purposes.” On the second page of that same memo, Mr. Hight says,

Here is a perfect example where the Director of your department had a recommendation from PFMC to take action toward closure of a recreational fishery controlled by DFG. Director Hight exercised proper discretion by refusing to close the fishery in question. He did so because of the inaccuracy of MRFSS data!

2. Memo of LB Boydstun dated September 7, 2001 to the PFMC. Here is another memo in the possession of your department where a competent employee does a validity investigation of MRFSS data and finds that MRFSS data has been exaggerated by 4-20 times (average = 9.6 times).

3. The 2003 Coastside/RFA Groundfish Survey Report. Your department has in its possession this report. In fact, you refer to this report in your own memo at the bottom of page 3. This report concludes that MRFSS data for harvest data is overestimated by approximately 20 times! Your memo “sluffs-off” this report by saying that the GMT did not have sufficient data to evaluate the methodology of the Coastside/RFA report. However, when this report seems to be right in line with earlier assessments by your own employees (Like Hight and Boydston), how can you disregard this data.

4. Confession by federal government that MRFSS data is not accurate enough for inseason adjustments. You might be wondering whether MRFSS data collection efforts have improved in accuracy since the assessments by Hight and Boydstun described above. They have not! This is confessed by the federal government. As stated in the Federal Register, March 7, 2003, Vol. 68, page 11191, middle column:

How can the PFMC expect you to rely on MRFSS data to properly exercise your discretion when they confess that this data is not accurate enough to be used for inseason monitoring.

I am sure that you also know that the MRFSS national web site has a clear statement of MRFSS Mission. They say in bold print on their “Mission” statement page that: “It is not our mission to provide in-season quota monitoring.”

5. Anecdotal Evidence. I am sure that other employees of DFG have pointed out to you the absurdity of the MRFSS data. I am sure that your department knows exactly how many launch facilities are in California above Cape Mendocino. MRFSS data says that above Cape Mendocino in the 2003 wave 4, 370 metric tons of rockfish were caught by recreational anglers. That is an absurdity. You can contact the harbormasters and the U.S. Coast Guard to determine exactly how many launches took place from these northern California ports during July and August 2003. We have a sworn declaration in our law suit showing the number of launches in Eureka and Crescent City during July and August. Even if you assume there were a few additional launches in Trinidad, it still leads to the conclusion that there were about 1600 total launches in July and August from these northern ports. Do you seriously believe that these boats caught 370 metric tons of rockfish (i.e. 814,000 pounds of fish)? That would mean that each skiff caught over 500 pounds of rockfish per day. This is an absurdity. Again, it is clear just from anecdotal investigation that these MRFSS figures are inflated 10-20 times.

I am sure you noticed in the MRFSS data that it claims 37.5 metric tons of lingcod were caught in California during waves 1-3. That means that MRFSS is claiming that 82,500 pounds of lingcod were caught before the recreational fishing season opened. Has your department checked with MRFSS spokesman Wade Van Buskirk to determine how this happened? He reports that his surveyors were in Santa Cruz harbor monitoring salmon fishing and caught some fishermen taking 9 lingcod illegally. He admits that this catch was extrapolated statewide to end up with 37.5 metric tons being caught. Isn’t it an absurdity to assume for statistical purposes that everyone in California is a criminal and that this anomaly in Santa Cruz should be extrapolated statewide? This is further reason for your department to distrust MRFSS data.

6. Year-over-year comparisons: In your memo, on page 2, you discuss the fishing effort this year in the last full paragraph on the page. You suggest that fishing effort is supposedly 3 times the mean effort of a 24-year period from 1980-2003. You state that the fishing effort in wave 4 suggests that this effort is 50% higher than the highest prior year in history (1985). Then you say:

The catch estimate is not overstated by 60%. It is overstated by at least 5-10 times, and possibly as high as 20 times. You suggest, with some apparent incredulity, that to stay within the OY, effort would have to be below normal. That is absolutely what has happened in 2003. It would be very easy for you to establish that fishing effort was below normal in July and August of 2003. Call up some harbormasters and ask them for year-over-year comparisons of launching. I will give you an example. In 2002, there were 15,558 launches out of Morro Bay Harbor. In 2003, there were 12,273 launches out of Morro Bay Harbor. These statistics come right from the Harbormaster. I have all the daily log sheets from his office. That means that launches are down over 21% in Morro Bay Harbor in wave 4 from last year. So, yes indeed … it is highly likely that fishing effort in 2003 is below normal. Think how easy it would be for someone in your office to get on the telephone and check to see if fishing effort is below normal by contacting harbormasters statewide to see if year-over-year launch-count is lower in 2003 than earlier years.