I just got off the phone with the Ventura Harbor Patrol and as it sits right now, ALL hooping is to be closed inside the Ventura Harbor breakwall, and within 750' outside.

Channel Islands Harbor has also changed the rules to not allow you to be more than 10' from any of your hoops.

Here's a little history to the story

As always, hooping season opens up on the same time every year. The easiest and SAFEST way to hoop is with a smallish boat or Kayak inside of the safety of the harbor. Now, I don't know if any of you have seen opening night of lobter season, but it is an absolute zoo. Anyhow, the rules state that you are allowed to fish 5 hoops per person, but no more than 10 hoops per boat. There are a lot of tips and tricks to do this without tangling your lines amongst the other 200 hoops out there, but that's another related story. Well, last year there was quite a bit of drama over a few boats that refused to follow the harbor ruls and sped though every night running their pots. THe problem with this is that you have dozens of boats (inlcudin myself) that are working the breakwalls and piloting our crafts withing inches of the jetties. Not only do we have to manuvuer around our pots, but also other persons pots. We have to predict the tidal surges and waves to avoind being pushed into the rocks, and also have to be sure to not get our props wrapped in the lines of the hoops. And remember, you can't steer a boat sideways, so it takes an experienced captain to do this. So needless to say, the added unexpected wake of another boater is dangerous.

On to the closure.

Last year there were a lot of formal complaints to the harbor master for boats being dangerous, and there were a total of 3 boats sank inside the and outside the breakwall. One due to pilot error on the outside, one due to a stalled motor on the outside, and one due to a wrapped prop on the outside. These things happen, and as unfortunate as they are, we are all glad no one was injured. During all of this we have all had several discussions with the harbor patrol employees and the short of it, is they said they HATE having to come out of their office to deal with this stuff. "It's too cold to be screwing around with guys hooping" were one of their exact words.

So now as of this morning, we are lef with no other alternative than to make the 10 mile runs to the islands (at night mind you, that is when you hoops) or the 1-2 mile runs to open water looking for rock piles. I ask you this, which is going to be safer, the same zoo as last year where ther were zero injuries, or hundreds of small crafts out in open water, unequipped with radar for night runs and too small to take larger swells over the side?

It just kinda sux really. As boaters we tried to do the responsible thing and report all incedents to the proper authorities and in turn were punished for our good deeds. May nights I have stopped vigilante justice by stopping confrontations and simply filing the reports. It makes me wonder why in the world we dind't just all beat the crap out of those who were not following the law/rules. If we did, we would probably have a safer season this year



Rant over....

That really blows. Can you hoop from shore?

Technically yes, but it a hassle. I may give it a whirl, however you are allowed only one hoop per person.

So bring me along and run two.

Well as it sits now, there will be 3 camera crews from 3 different new stations at the harbor tomorrow night. I will be there along with a hundred or so boats. I have spent the day contacting every news station, commision member, and news paper about this, and we are set for a pretty good sit in......wish us luck

Oh, and an inside source at the harbor says that the harbor commisioner purposely had a last minute meeting so he did not have to publicly notify us about the meeting therefore we could not vote against it....smells like a lawsuit to me

That's pretty rotten of him. I look forward to hearing how it turns out!

That's a raw deal! No wonder it's so hard to get people to do the right thing when your penalizied and it's used against you! What's the next best option?

Jeph......whatever happened with this?

Yea, how's about an update?