Santa Barbara’s commercial fishers serve us well. We depend upon them in more ways than most of us think about.
When we buy fresh fish locally, when we eat seafood in many of our restaurants and when we head down to the harbor on Saturday mornings to buy ultra-fresh seafood directly from commercial anglers aboard their commercial boats at the Fisherman’s Market, we are depending on those fishers.
I’m blessed to know many of our commercial fishermen and women. I know them to be hard-working and dauntless.
By that I mean, as a matter of course they go out and work in conditions most folks wouldn’t even consider working in — like strong winds and tall waves with short intervals; like cold drizzle and frigid weather .
These folks take it in stride in order to keep their products on our plates when we want them and where we want them.
While I know many hard-working commercial fisherfolk, I don’t know any rich ones. That line of work doesn’t often bring real wealth.
It does offer some elbow room while out at sea working. It does offer some independence, and many of them are fiercely independent people by nature. I relate to that myself and admire them for it.
I sit at many meetings with them as I represent recreational anglers and they represent commercial fishers. Our issues, concerns and advocacy nearly always align.
The most basic way we take care of people who serve us well is to give them a fair price for their product. But it is also important to listen to their other needs.
They have been between a rock and a hard place lately with one of their critically-important needs. It is for space near or adjacent to the harbor and waterfront, where they can stow their gear and quickly retrieve it for immediate deployment when a particular species goes on the bite or becomes available to catch.
Our commercial fishers have been working diligently with the city of Santa Barbara to have a storage area adjacent to the waterfront.
One area zoned for ocean-related purposes is along Salsipuedes Street near the train tracks. The city recently made an agreement to lease or sell part of that area for a commercial lumberyard, which doesn’t come close to being ocean-related or dependent, especially compared to commercial fishing.
Our commercial fishers don’t have large sums of money to buy or lease at competitive prices that will make them look better than a large corporate entity.
That lumberyard mess is apparently a done deal, but my personal feeling is the city should do whatever is necessary to find a space just as close or closer to the harbor to work a deal with the commercial fishers.
We all need them to be able to work efficiently, and we don’t really want their storage space to be between the rock and a hard place I mentioned earlier. Let’s help convince the city.
— Capt. David Bacon operates WaveWalker Charters and is president of SOFTIN Inc., a nonprofit organization providing seafaring opportunities for those in need. Visit softininc.blogspot.com to learn more about the organization and how you can help. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
