Question;
When fishing for rockfish, we sometimes hook cowcod. It is the law to release this species, but these fish become floaters and are dead when they are brought to the surface. Why not allow anglers to keep one accidentally hooked fish since they are floaters and will die anyway?

Answer:
There is no take allowed for cowcod because their population numbers are low and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has declared them to be overfished. According to Associate Marine Biologist Ed Roberts, the federal rebuilding plan for cowcod stipulates a low harvest limit for the entire state of California every year. Because this harvest limit is so low, there is no room for any directed take of cowcod. If anglers were allowed to keep cowcod that were taken incidentally while fishing for other species, inevitably unethical anglers would target cowcod and claim they were caught incidentally. This would then cause the small annual harvest limit to be reached very quickly, resulting in NMFS and the state needing to take action to reduce catches to avoid exceeding the harvest limit. The most likely course of action would be the closure of the bottomfish fishery for all species.

While it seems wasteful to release cowcod caught accidentally, there really is no other way to ensure the total incidental catch amount does not exceed the harvest limit while still allowing anglers to target other bottomfish.