Les Chatterton, left, and James Fernandes have to take their fishing boats farther and farther from Heeia Boat Harbor these days and end up catching fewer onaga and ehu. Photo by Dennis Oda, Star-Bulletin

That was more than 20 years ago. These days, he pilots his 43-foot boat Ruthles to Kalaupapa, Lanai, the Penguin Banks and Kahoolawe for five days and hauls in hundreds of pounds of unmarketable sharks.

He still catches onaga and ehu, but not as many as in decades past. And by the time he pulls them up from 800 feet deep, many have been gobbled by hungry sandbar and reef sharks that destroy his gear.

Fishermen across the state echo Chatterton's lament that bottom fish, the delight of many a restaurant patron, are becoming increasingly scarce. Scientists report that the numbers of onaga and ehu around the main Hawaiian Islands are at critically low levels, and that opakapaka are becoming dangerously depleted.

The federal government last year threatened to protect these bottom fish by closing the fishery, which extends 10 miles off shore of the main Hawaiian Islands, as it has done to other depleted fisheries.

The state promised the federal government it would devise a management plan to keep the fishery open and protect the endangered onaga and ehu, and have it ready by the end of 1996.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources formed an advisory panel of commercial and noncommercial fishermen, scientists and government officials that met with fishermen 13 times between December and March to hammer out a plan.

Panel members expected to get blasted at the meetings by fishermen resentful of attempts to control fishing. But panel member William Aila, vice president of the Hawaii Fishermen's Foundation, got a pleasant surprise at a meeting in Kona.

"One of the most respected fishermen stood up and said, 'What the hell are you guys waiting for?' They knew the fishery was in trouble and wanted it protected right away," Aila said.

Based on input from fishermen, the state has created a preliminary management plan which will be fine-tuned during public hearings this summer. For information, call Walter Ikehara at 587-0096, or 587-0100, or send e-mail to walteri@pixi.com.

The fishermen welcome the chance to speak their minds about why the fishery is suffering.

"The state doesn't restrict who can come here and fish, especially off the neighbor islands, the breeding grounds," said Chatterton. "These guys have 90-foot and bigger boats. And when they restrict the catch, it hurts the little guys."

Cheaters beware

"My philosophy is, if you're going to restrict our fishing, shouldn't the government compensate us the same way they compensate farmers for not producing a particular crop?"

The state is fighting to prevent a ban on fishing for onaga and ehu, which would force more fishermen to go after opakapaka. And while it can't legally keep nonresidents from fishing in Hawaiian waters, it can keep everyone from fishing in certain areas. It plans to turn 20 percent of traditional onaga and ehu fishing grounds into kapu areas, where the threatened fish will be able to breed.

It's a system the ancient Hawaiians used to protect an endangered resource, and Aila believes that once the state teaches fishermen that closing those areas is in the best interest of their livelihood and recreation, the fishermen will comply.

And for those that don't, peer pressure will help protect the fish. "Fishermen will wait at the dock for the cheaters," said Aila.

"We looked at area closures elsewhere in the world and found it worked. The fringes of the closed areas are popular with fishermen because fish spill over from the breeding areas. In other parts of the world, fishermen asked for more closure areas."

Recreational licenses?

But no one knows how many recreational fishermen there are, and how many fish they haul in. That makes it easy for each group to blame the other.

Government officials believe they can't manage the fishery effectively unless they know precisely how many of which fish are caught, and when and where they were landed.

To do that, they want to license recreational fishermen, limit their catch of bottom fish and require them to report their catches.

Chatterton has a simpler idea to take pressure off the bottom fish. Just give fishermen a reliable way to test reef fish for ciguatera.

Because of the risk of ciguatera poisoning, fish buyers won't take papio, ulua, kahala and other plentiful reef fish, which forces fishermen to go after bottom fish, which don't carry ciguatera.

Limit could boost prices

One week onaga is $14 a pound, the next it plunges to $5.95. Chatterton can burn 362 gallons of gasoline during five days of catching a few hundred pounds of bottom fish. The price of gas is fairly constant at $1.11 a gallon, but the price of the fish is always a gamble.

"If their projection with this proposed management plan is that five or 10 years down the road it's going to improve, it's going to be too late to do me any good. I'll be too old, and it's not doing me any good right now."

Bill Devick, head of the state Division of Aquatic Resources, is convinced the state is on the right track.

"We're trying to maintain a fishery and keep it open if at all possible. But ultimately we have to protect a resource."

Even if that means closing the fishery.