Scott Rouhier, F/V Tidepoint
Fisherman
“Some people look at us like a gruff group that doesn’t care about anything, but that couldn’t be further from the case. We chose to make our living on the water so we know more than anyone the importance of taking care of it.” —Scott Rouhier
Around 15 years ago, Scott Rouhier and his father Tom decided to make their hobby their career, bought a boat, the F/V Tidepoint, and learned the trade of commercial fishing on the fly.
“The boat was beat up, and we [emptied] two dumpsters of trash from it after we bought it, but with a lot of work, it became a pretty nice boat,” says Rouhier, 45. “Our first fishery was Dungeness crab–working with my dad was difficult at best, but we made a good go of it.”
Unfortunately, Tom Rouhier passed in 2019, but now Scott Rouhier runs the boat by himself. Around the time of his father’s death, he switched his home port from Santa Cruz to Moss Landing to shorten the commute from his home in Aromas. But, family still runs deep — the Tidepoint is named after the tugboat his great grandfather ran on the Oregon Coast in the early half of the 20th century.
On top of fishing and working with the Monterey Bay Fishery Trust’s lost gear recovery program, Rouhier has his own ocean clean-up project that could one day be turned into art. He has a collection of Mylar balloons he has found floating on the Monterey Bay over the years. They come in all shapes like a heart, a flamingo, and a unicorn, among others. All have floated from land before settling down onto the ocean as waste.
“I like to pick up balloons that end up in the water – that’s one of my things,” he says with a chuckle. “My favorite one was a smiley face. Like really? A big yellow balloon floating on our beautiful ocean smiling at me.”
Rouhier says he’s in talks with an art gallery to display his collection of colorful balloons pulled from the Monterey Bay to raise awareness about plastic pollution.
What does a typical day of Dungeness crab fishing look like?
On a typical day, the first thing I do is double-check the weather. If it’s not looking good, then we don’t go out. If things are clear, we’ll leave the harbor when it’s still dark — around 4 or 5 am.
I like to run out to my gear that’s the furthest away first, to make the run back to Moss Landing shorter at the end of the day. My guys will chop bait and fill bait jars on the way out. I set my gear anywhere from Año Nuevo to Moss Landing, so the run time is variable.
I have a 250-pot permit. If fishing’s slow, we’ll run the gear in a day, but usually, it takes two days to completely run through the 250 pots. Depending on the fishing, we’ll stack out the pots and move them to another area — I think last year we moved around 1,000 pots.
In the end, it’s a long day on the water, around 12 to 18 hours. When the fishing and the weather is good, we’ll do that day after day.
What is your approach to fishing responsibly?
Most of the time, I look at what I can do on the water and in the port. Part of fishing responsibly is keeping things clean — don’t leave anything in the water that shouldn’t be there.
I already told you about my balloons, but I’m also always picking up monofilament fishing line, whether it’s my own or someone else's. I’ll collect it and take it to a place where it can be recycled. I’ll even pull it out of a dumpster if I see it there, then take care of it the right way.
What does it mean to you to see people enjoying your fish?
That’s my favorite. It’s great to connect with the end consumer and see people get excited about what I just pulled out of the water. I also love gifting fish and crab. It makes me feel good to share with my friends.