The Pacific Fisheries Management Council’s has decided to move up sharp cutbacks in ocean fishing to September. It had been widely believed the restrictions would start next year.

That’s bad news for commercial fishermen. Many have already stopped fishing for sole and black cod in the summer because the catch is already so restricted it doesn’t pay, but many were planning to go back to sea this winter.

The council voted recently to prohibit commercial trawling — the dragging of nets along the ocean bottom — for groundfish from waters 600 feet deep to 1,500 feet deep off the coasts of Oregon and Washington. The restriction closes the majority of the continental shelf beginning Sept. 1.

The ever-tightening restrictions have devastated the west coast fishing industry. Fishermen who once had annual incomes of $80,000 are now trying to survive on $15,000 a year because they don’t know anything else. They’ve watched for years as the federal government set quotas and cut catches, but know there is little they can do to fight it.

However, what angers and frustrates many commercial fishermen is what they say is flawed science driving the regulations. Fishermen believe the millions of dollars spent on studies could be better used to buy out all the fisherman on the west coast, putting the federal agency out of business. That way, they note, federal employees would be looking for jobs instead of the fishermen.