Abalone season on summer break

(Staff Photo) A free diver readies his equipment before pursuing mollusks on the bottom of the sea.

Mendocino Coast abalone are getting a break from their human predators, and the humans are giving themselves a break this year by getting more savvy about the ocean, according to the Coast's chief game warden and local fishery and dive experts.

The recreational abalone season is closed for the month of July and will reopen August 1. So far, a new rule banning the take of abalone before 8 a.m. seems to be meeting the State Department of Fish and Wildlife goal of reducing the overall catch by 30 percent, according to the Mendocino Coast's chief warden Lt. Doug McKiver.

The year has also seen a lot of rough water so far, and Steve Lackey, owner of Dive Mendocino and a dive instructor at Subsurface Progression, says people seem to be getting smarter about ocean conditions, and using gear to help them dive safely.

"We feel like divers are getting more educated," Lackey said. "and not just looking at the low tides and heading out into 17-foot swells ... More people are looking at the ocean forecast."

Divers are using float lines more often too, Lackey said. A float line is made of stiff vinyl which keeps it from getting tangled in seaweed and rocks. Divers attach an ab iron to the end of the float line. Then, when they find a spot they like, Lackey said, they can drop the iron, attached to the line, and mark the spot, Then they can go down again and find where they spotted that trophy ab. Float lines can take a lot of strenuous work out of the pursuit.

Over-exertion is the culprit in many abalone diving fatalities, and many more unreported close calls, all of which are avoidable by using smart diving tactics, and — even for experienced divers — taking a lesson now and then. So far this year, there have been three diving fatalities between Elk and Westport.

Warden McKiver said new regulations seem to be having the desired effect of reducing the overall take by about a third. The most noticeable change is to ban abbing before 8 a.m., which eliminates about a quarter of the low- and minus-tides from the season.

"The few (people) that we caught taking abalone before 0800 knew that what they were doing was in violation," McKiver reports. "Most people seem to be happy with the new law, especially in light of the alternatives, which was to either shorten the season, or reduce the daily limit, or both."

The total yearly limit has also been reduced from 24 abalone to 18. With a two-per-day limit still in effect, most vacationing abalone divers aren't affected by the yearly take reduction.


In 2011, alarms went out from the Sonoma coast after a mass die-off of red abalone, mussels, sea urchins and startfish. Last May, Dept. of Fish and Wildlife scientists determined that the die-off was caused by blooms of coastal ocean algae. Gonyaulaux spinifera is native to the Northern California coast, but in recent years, it has become prone to population explosions, or blooms. When the algae proliferates, it releases a toxin that can kill abalone and mussels, and make the shellfish poisonous to people.

The new regulations are largely a response to the 2011 event. The algae blooms have not returned, but the die-off was severe enough to warrant further protection of the slow-growing abalone, state regulators believe.

Now, said McKiver, "The abalone population continues to be healthy. We are trying to keep it that way with the current regulation changes to reduce overall take."