In a marine area nearly the size of California, stretching northwest from the main Hawaiian islands, a handful of fishermen, including Timm and Tim Timoney, still ply the waters, hooking sea bass and snappers during days- or weeks-long trips.

But in just more than four years, the Timoneys' unique way of life will end forever under provisions of the vast marine monument President Bush has established out of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

The Timoneys travel to the fishing grounds a thousand miles from the main Hawaiian Islands for about three weeks at a time.

"I just think it's a way of making a living that we can do at our speed. And we really like doing it," said Timoney, 60, who has been fishing the region with her husband, Tim, since 1983.

President Bush's creation in June of the monument answered a question that five years of debate had failed to resolve: Bottom fishing — a technique involving trolling for fish using hooks and lines that is the last form of fishing still allowed in the area — will end in the protected waters.

But Bush's announcement didn't answer how the fishermen will be compensated for their loss of livelihood.

Bringing in just $645,150 in 2006, the fish from the remote islands make up less than 1 percent of Hawai'i's $70 million local fishing industry. So it's not expected to have a major effect on the general supply of fish for local restaurants and fish markets.

But the decision leaves eight permit holders — including four boats said to be actively fishing the region — with the need to find new ways to make a living.

And most aren't happy to see an end to a Pacific tradition.

The Pew Charitable Trust, a private Philadelphia-based group focused on public interest issues, met with the area's bottom-fisherman more than a year ago in an effort to speed up the process to create a strict conservation zone. But after an offer to pay them five times their average annual income to stop fishing, negotiations went nowhere.

Since creation of the monument was announced, Pew abandoned its efforts to persuade the fishermen to leave sooner.

Of the eight permit holders, two showed interest in Pew's offer, two were maybes and four were unresponsive, according to trust officials.

Some say it's not about the money; it's about a tradition that is about to be lost forever.

"To put it very simply, they weren't offering enough to make it worthwhile," Timoney said.

Jay Nelson, who directs the Northwest Hawaiian Islands Initiative for Pew, said it is disingenuous to criticize Pew's offer as too small or not accounting for the fishermen's emotional losses because those cases were never directly made to Pew.

"It is difficult to negotiate with someone who won't speak to you about any specifics," he said.

Nelson speculated that the fishermen may have been wary of Pew looking at what each of them make on paper from fishing the northwestern islands and may be holding out for a federal buyout at the end of five years.

The deal did have limitations, including a requirement that all permit holders had to participate in the offer for it to go through — which didn't sit well with some fishermen.

"Fishermen are kind of independent in general, and so getting them to agree on whether the stop light is red or green is not always easy," said Sean Martin, chairman of the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council.

A PRICELESS EXPERIENCE

Fisherman Gary Dill said it would be difficult to put a price on never fishing the islands again.

The experience is a far cry from the busy harbors, city lights and honking horns of O'ahu, said Dill, who takes three-day trips to pull in a catch.

"It's the wild, wild West. There's no lines on the highway," he said. "You're immersed in Mother Nature doing a job, a task that somehow you find exciting," he said.

The biologically rich region of tiny islands and churning waters teems with 14 million nesting seabirds, with about 7,000 species of birds, fish and marine mammals in all, a quarter of which are unique to Hawai'i. And one expedition returning from the area this fall claimed to have found yet more species that are entirely new to science.

Several of the islands have a long history of human use, including as military landing strips, guano mines and sources for bird parts and eggs. But the islands have been protected for nearly a century as wildlife refuges, with protections generally stretching out to a depth of 60 feet in surrounding waters.

CLINTON PLAYED ROLE

Federal waters extending out about 50 miles became a coral reef ecosystem reserve under executive orders in 2000 and 2001 by then President Bill Clinton, starting a five-year clock on a process to fashion a marine sanctuary out of the region and answer such questions as whether or not to allow fishing.

Bush trumped the sanctuary process with his decision to ban fishing in the 137,792 square-mile area, creating the largest no-take marine sanctuary in the world.