Page 6C
OUTSIDE
East Oregonian
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Recreational fishing closures devastate coastal Oregon business
By NICHOLAS A. JOHNSON
The (Coos Bay) World
CHARLESTON, Ore. (AP) —
This time of year the Charleston
Marina is usually a bustling place
with sport fishers taking advantage
of the good weather before the rains
come, but recent bottom fishing
closures have driven much of that
business away.
“On a beautiful day like today
the marina parking lot should be
filled with trailers and boats, but
there’s hardly anybody here,”
harbormaster John Buckley said
recently.
Bottom fishing has opened back
up with the restrictions.
Anglers going bottom fishing
must be outside of the 40 fathom
line, and use long leader gear.
However, the economic damage
to the Charleston community has
already been done.
“I’ve counted the number of trips
that I’ve lost and canceled, and the
dollar figure on that is right around
$4,000 worth of trips. That doesn’t
include trips I would have booked
in the future. We work all year long
and we meet our expenses, but the
end of the season is when we’re
counting on making our profit that
we’re going to live off of. That
just didn’t happen this year,” said
captain John Blanchard, owner of
Sharky’s Charters.
Many of these Charleston busi-
nesses are upset with the closure
because of the lack of communi-
cation they’ve had with Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“We didn’t get any warning
essentially that this closure was
going to happen. All of a sudden
we get two days’ notice that they’re
going to close the season. There
was no warning, we weren’t able to
plan for it,” Blanchard said.
Notice of the closure did come
abruptly. The press release from
ODFW about the closure came out
Tuesday, Sept. 12, and the fishery
was closed by Sept. 18.
“This has been an absolutely
devastating hit to us. We went from
“There’s no sportsmen in town
at all, so nobody comes here for
their coffee in the morning like they
were,” Crabby Cakes Bakery owner
Marvin Terry said. “This time of the
year is normally some of our busiest
time of year. We’ve lost half of our
business.”
Bottom fishing was closed
because quotas were reached much
faster than expected, and they’re
trying to protect yellow eye rockfish
populations.
“That yellow eye rockfish is a
long-live species, they claim it lives
100 years plus,” Blanchard said. “It
takes a long time to reproduce and
grow. It’s essentially the spotted
owl of the recreational fleet. It’s
doing exactly what the spotted owl
did to the timber industry.”
At a public meeting in early
August, ODFW had a discussion
about bottom fishing nearing
quotas, asking members of the
public what they think should be
done about it.
According to Blanchard, the
fishermen
at the meeting were
Nicholas Johnson/The World via AP
In this Friday, Sept. 29, 2017 photo, Charleston Marina is quieter than usual this time of year after the adamant about not closing the
Oregon Dept. of Fish and Wildlife closed bottom fishing in Charleston, Ore. Bottom fishing was closed fishery, instead proposing that bag
because quotas were reached much faster than expected, and they’re trying to protect yellow eye limits be lowered.
“We’re not fighting a lack of
rockfish populations. Bottom fishing has opened back up with the restrictions that fisherman going
bottom fishing must be outside of the 40 fathom line, and use long leader gear.
resources; we’re fighting politics
and management,” Gensorek said.
the busiest time of year, where we
“There’s a lot of fish out there, but
make money that pays our bills and
they’ve set up a quota system that
keeps our employees paid, to losing
I think is inherently flawed. We’re
90 percent of our overall income
not protecting fish with this, we’re
within about 36 hours,” Rob
just simply hurting people. If it was
Gensorek owner of Basin Tackle
hurting the fish, and the stocks were
said.
down, I’d be one of the first people
After months of continuous
rallying to do something, because
growth the closure forced Gensorek
that’s our business.”
to lay off all of his employees.
This is the first time in 15 years
Luckily he was able to stay open,
that a total bottom fishing closure
but business has come to a grinding
has been put in place.
halt.
Bottom fishing quotas were met
“It’s just me, and I’m not even
so much faster because salmon and
paying myself a wage anymore,”
tuna fishing have been poor this
Gensorek said.
year.
The recreational fishing industry
“The culture of fishing out here
in Charleston has a wide reach
is so huge, it’s so ingrained in these
economically. Local restaurants,
people. Whether they’re tourists
Nicholas Johnson/The World via AP
like Crabby Cakes Bakery, have In this Sept. 29 photo, Rob Gensorek’s business Basin Tackle has that come from afar, or locals that
also seen a slowdown since the remained open despite losing 90 percent of his business’ overall recreate, it’s been taken away, and
bottom fishing closure.
income after ODFW closed bottom fishing in Charleston.
that’s devastating,” Gensorek said.
Officials explain fire strategy to skeptical public
Chetco Bar fire cost $61 million to fight,
burned 18 days before it was noticed
By JEFF DUEWEL
The Daily Courier
AGNESS, Ore. (AP) — Forest
Service officials spent over an hour
explaining how the Chetco Bar fire
went from the size of someone’s back-
yard to a conflagration that was bearing
down on the town of Brookings within
five weeks.
“Point blank, the Forest Service
does not have a let-it-burn policy,”
Rogue
River-Siskiyou
National
Forest Supervisor Ross McWhorter
indignantly answered one of about 20
people at the Agness RV Park next
to the lower Rogue River. “Does that
answer your question? Our goal was
full suppression.”
Four such meetings were called late
last week to deal with a public fed up
with breathing wildfire smoke from
multiple fires in southern Oregon and
around the West, and to respond to
previous meetings where politicians
and citizens called for drastic changes
in forest management and fire policies.
Across the U.S., 8.5 million acres
have burned this fire season, including
16 percent of Rogue River-Siskiyou’s
1.8 million acres.
Fire officials explained that steep
terrain and extreme danger in fighting
the Chetco Bar fire’s early stages in the
Kalmiopsis Wilderness kept them from
snuffing it when it was less than an acre
in mid-July.
Then when Chetco Effect winds
started blowing toward the coast on
Aug. 15, the fire went on a five-day
rampage, doubling in size and over-
whelming all planning and effort.
The Chetco Bar fire has now burned
300 square miles, and cost over $61
million to fight. For a while it was the
largest wildfire and the highest priority
forest fire in the country.
“There’s always going to be that
2 percent of fires, under extreme
“They didn’t do
enough right off
the bat ... if you put
enough water on it,
eventually it’s going
to wash the fire out.”
— Bill Scherbarth,
Agnes, Oregon fire chief
conditions or complex terrain, or a
combination of both, that we’re never
going to be successful in initial attack,”
said John Prendergast, National Inci-
dent Management Organization safety
officer.
Curry County Commissioner Court
Boice said that something needs to
change.
“I don’t know how much more wild-
fire we can handle,” Boice said. “We’re
losing our timber and our watersheds.”
Someone asked if the agency has
learned anything from catastrophic
fires, such as the Biscuit Fire in 2002
that overlapped the Chetco Bar foot-
print and was more than twice as big.
“What we’ve learned has been
offset by climate change and lots of fuel
buildup, and we have more severe fire
than ever before,” said Craig Trulock,
deputy forest supervisor.
Trulock said after around the 1940s,
annual wildfire acreage in the Siskiyou
dropped from around 21,000 to 4,000
because of more aggressive suppres-
sion, allowing fuel to build up.
When asked whether environmental
concerns kept firefighters from doing
everything they could inside a wilder-
ness area, McWhorter said they threw
everything available at the fire other
than bulldozers — because they had no
way to get there anyway.
It all started with lightning storms
on June 24 and 25.
It was another 18 days before a
commercial airline pilot noticed smoke
near the Chetco River at 2:43 p.m. on
July 12. McWhorter said within 15
minutes firefighters were summoned.
The first day four members of the
Siskiyou Rappelers began working on
a landing zone for a helicopter, known
as a helispot, critical for safety and
for dropping firefighters. Helicopters
dumped water on the fire.
Firefighters described how hard it
was to walk on steep slopes with brush
and slick madrone leaves. Snags from
the old Biscuit Fire posed extreme
danger of falling on firefighters.
Monty Edwards, fire management
officer based at the Wild Rivers Ranger
District in Cave Junction, showed
photos on Day 1 and Day 2 of “rollout”
fires, where burning material caused
spot fires downhill.
Any benefit from water dumps was
offset by those dumps knocking more
fire down the steep hill.
There were also many Douglas fir
trees over 3 feet in diameter starting to
burn.
“I don’t know how
much more wildfire
we can handle. We’re
losing our timber and
our watersheds.”
— Court Boice,
Curry County Commissioner
He decided against sending in two
20-person teams because of the safety
concerns. Another group of rappelers
made the same decision. At 4:38 p.m.
on that first day all firefighters were
called off.
There was no way to get tight to
the fire, so an indirect strategy was
adopted.
Had firefighters been sent forward
and someone been hurt, “It would be
difficult to look a parent in the face later
and justify that decision,” said Virginia
Gibbons, forest spokeswoman.
The fire didn’t grow much for a few
weeks, but by Aug. 18 was up to 8,500
acres, after the Chetco Effect winds
began on Aug. 15.
On Aug. 20, the wildfire advanced
six miles and blew up to near 100,000
acres, doubling its size.
Prendergast said everybody and
everything had to pull way back from
the fire.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if that
fire line was 1,000 feet wide, nothing
was going to stop the fire that day,” he
said.
The meeting in Agness was mostly
civil. A crowd of about 200 people
at Brookings Thursday night proved
more confrontational, Gibbons said.
“The people who stood up in Brook-
ings lost homes; they suffered loss,”
Gibbons said. “It was an important first
step in the healing process.”
Afterward, Ed Weiseth of Agness
said he thought fire officials explained
themselves well, but hoped for a better
outcome next time.
“I think it was a professional
approach to a complex problem,” he
said. “I hope whatever the critique is,
we can do better with our initial attack,
hit the fires with overwhelming force.”
Bill Scherbarth, fire chief in Agness,
wasn’t impressed.
“They didn’t do enough, right
off the bat,” he said. “Granted, they
couldn’t put crews in there, but if you
put enough water on it, eventually it’s
going to wash (the fire) out.”
But fire officials were adamant that
without ground crews, dropping water
and slurry from aircraft wasn’t going to
be enough.
Have an adventure story you’d like to tell, or a photo
of your trophy animal you’d be willing to share?
Email outdoors editor Tim Trainor at ttrainor@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0835.
BRIEFLY
Timberline to open 5 family members
Palmer Snowfield found safe in
on Saturday
Mount Hood
Advanced skiers and
National Forest
riders, rejoice: Timberline
will open Palmer Snowfield
this weekend.
Weather permitting,
weekend skier and
snowboarders will be able
to use the lift starting Oct. 7
and 8 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The lift will operate between
those times on Saturdays and
Sundays.
Tickets are $61 each and
will be available at guest
services in Timberline’s
Wy’East Day Lodge. Season
Pass holders may use their
new pass.
Timberline recommends
only advanced skiers and
riders for Palmer. While
there will be some snow
grooming, conditions
can still change rapidly
with early season snow
conditions. Skiers and riders
are urged to use extreme
caution.
Currently, the terrain
parks are not scheduled
to open. Sledding and
tubing is not permitted yet
either. Check Timberline
Lodge’s conditions page
for operating times and the
current lift schedule.
— Samantha Bakall, The
Oregonian
DNA tests confirm
gray wolf is
roaming northwest
Washington state
MARBLEMOUNT,
Wash. (AP) — Federal
officials say DNA testing
has confirmed that a wolf is
roaming on the west side of
the Cascade mountains in
northwestern Washington
state.
The U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service says a GPS
collar placed on the wolf
captured in June shows it has
remained in Skagit County.
Fish and Wildlife
spokeswoman Ann
Froschauer says it’s not clear
where the gray wolf came
from because DNA samples
don’t find a connection with
known wolf packs in eastern
Washington, Idaho or British
Columbia.
Officials say the wolf is
about 100 miles from the
nearest known wolf pack.
Officials say no conflicts
with domestic animals have
been reported.
PORTLAND (AP) —
Two women and three chil-
dren reported missing in the
Mount Hood National Forest
have been found safe.
The Clackamas County
Sheriff’s Office says deputies
found the group camping
earlier this week.
The sheriff’s office
sought the public’s help
this weekend after someone
reported that a 51-year-old
woman was overdue from
a camping trip she took
with her daughter and three
grandchildren.
No increased
danger after
Yosemite rocks fall
YOSEMITE NATIONAL
PARK, Calif. (AP) — A
geological analysis Friday
found there was no more
danger than usual of another
giant rock fall after two
huge slides, including one
involving a slab of granite
the size of a 36-story
building, occurred this week
on the famed El Capitan
rock formation in Yosemite
National Park.
One person was killed
and two injured in the
successive rock falls last
week at the climbing mecca.
“If we felt any area was
unsafe we wouldn’t be
allowing people in there,”
Yosemite geologist Greg
Stock said Friday.
He and a U.S. Geological
Service geologist were
studying the mountain after
the rock falls that awed
but did not deter people
in the close-knit climbing
community.
“It’s kind of an inherently
dangerous sport,” Hayden
Jamieson, 24, of Mammoth
Lakes, California, said as
he prepared to head up El
Capitan early Saturday.
The park typically sees
about 80 rock falls a year.
Elite climbers who make
their way up the sheer rock
faces with ropes and their
fingertips understand the risk
but also know it’s rare to get
hit and killed by rocks.
In addition, Stock said
it’s impossible to predict
when and where a rock fall
will strike. Detecting shifts
in rocks could be a sign that
one will break loose days or
maybe years later, he said.