April 13, 2023 — After decades of public scrutiny, legal battles, and many regulatory changes that constricted the fishery, large-mesh drift gillnets for swordfish in California will be phased out by 2027. Deep-set buoy gear, now being employed under federal exempted fishing permits, is set to become the primary method to harvest swordfish off the California coast, with harpoons continuing as a supplemental fishery.
After years of debate and with plenty of bad blood some between primary stakeholders, there is one thing the fishing industry, fisheries managers, and environmental groups agree on: There will be less bycatch from catching swordfish, but unless new technology can be scaled up there will also be less swordfish landed out of California ports.
“It’s not a replacement fishery for large mesh drift gillnets,” says Chugey Sepulveda of deep-set buoy gear. Sepulveda is director and senior scientist at the Pfleger Institute of Environmental Research and is the person who first developed deep-set buoy gear in the Southern California Bight. The buoy gear “was brought online to capitalize/augment the existing harpoon fishery, which supports a market that receives a higher price-point for its catch.”
Deep-set buoy gear has shown to be effective at catching swordfish efficiently with minimal bycatch, yielding a higher market price per pound, but Sepulveda and fishermen currently using the gear under federal exempted fishing permits say it was developed for smaller boats and doesn’t yield the volume of fish needed to cover the costs of larger vessels.
Furthermore, bycatch was still part of the catch for drift gillnets. Fishermen using large mesh drift gillnets earned additional income from retained thresher shark, louver, and other species, that will be lost with deep-set buoy gear.
Deep-set buoy gear consists of a vertical mainline around 150 fathoms in length with a flagpole outfitted with a light or radar reflector at the surface and a heavy sinker to keep the line anchored vertically. Attached to the mainline are typically 1 to 3 circle hooks with a light attached to shine below the thermocline at 20-70 meters (65 to 230 feet) in California waters. The gear is also designed to be actively tended with strike indicators at the surface to alert fishermen when a fish is on.