Feds and halibut control in Alaska

[sisu]

I have been trying to find a job for my god son and called a buddy with a nice lodge in PWS. His business has been booming and figured he might be able to use a young 18 year old. Well I got the surprise of my life. The feds took control of the charter in PWS this year (they have been doing this in SE for a while now) and basically if you are a new charter operation on the block you are out of business. My buddy told me he lost 6 maybe 7 of his regular charters that used his lodge as a camping, wine and dine spot.

I guess the commercial halibut fishermen in Canada and United States lobbied hard enough in DC and Ottawa that they got what they wanted. Kinda sucks but he who whines the longest and loudest gets what they whine for.

[cohoho]

Heard something of that as a friend that was only four years in had to pull out, sold his boat and back to being an electrician for this and future seasons.   

[Angus]

He shouldn't have been suprised by this, limited entry has been in the works for a long time.

[7mmfan]

I used to run a charter boat out of Sitka for a company. I heard of this in the works 4 or 5 years ago. That is one of the reasons that I headed back down here. I could see the writing on the wall. The owner was worried that he would not be able to keep all of us busy. Looks like its finally happening

[sisu]

Please take a look at this website  www.charteroperatorsofalaska.org .  The takeover of management of the recreational Halibut sport fishing industry has negative implications for us all.  As a state managed resource halibut had to be managed for the greater good of all Alaskan's.  Now a special interest group, the Halibut Commercial Fishing Industry, has gained management control through the federal government (NOAA).   Commercial Fishing Interests fund and control the board directing federal management.  Decisions are being made to keep $$$ in their pockets, which means keeping halibut out of your freezers.  Check out the new federal halibut regulations for processing and transportation and think of how this effects all boat owners in Alaska.  For example, I was told by a NOAA fisheries officer that it would be illegal for me to have any cut fillet on my boat, if I had any recreational fishing gear on board at all (which includes salmon hooks, gaffs, nets, poles, reels etcetera).  This essentially means I can no longer eat fresh or frozen halibut when I am out fishing or hunting from my boat.  This also means I cannot keep frozen packaged halibut in my on board freezer.  It is crazy!!!
 
Not to mention the 35% to 40% of families that have just lost there business due to not qualifying for the new Halibut Charter permits.  Sport caught halibut are worth more to the State of Alaska's economy than Commercially caught Halibut this does not make sense for Alaska.  
 
Furthermore, there are more halibut caught as by-catch and discarded by other Commercial fisherman than the entire recreational fishery catches.  This is not a management issue, it is a control issue $$$$ and loss of freedom issue.
 
I urge you to look at what is happening and take action,

(If you have a commercial fishing license then you can have all the above and not be in violation! Thought you know know that)

[WDFW-SUX]

There are some big time MF'ers in the commercial fishing lobby.. I pray to god they don't wreck the best fishery there is...

First thing I do when my feet hit Alaska is find a halibut Burger...

[corktex]

This sort of thing will be our future,particularly now that the supreme court has determined that corporations including multinationals can invest unlimited sums of money to political campaigns,with no disclosures required." Free market " Fascism better knows as Corporatism a.k.a. globalisation,Mussolini's wet dream,liberty and opportunity up for sale and the supreme has ruled big money from corporations to buy T.V. adds and such for the candidate of their choice to best lobby,is free speech!! All I want is to catch my own bloody halibut someday... Alas yet another dream usurpted by the corruption of the too big to fail!! I'm so sad I've resorted to run on sentences! Sisu...Guess it's off to MacDonald's not Alaska..

[Gringo31]

There are bigger things in play here.  I've been in several hours worth of "sitting around the campfire" type scenarios discussing this very thing.  Frankly, I'm just a fly on the wall but found it very interesting.  I was fortunate to be able to listen in to heated discussions and the people at that "campfire" or living room included a LONG time commercial fisherman, a charter fisherman, as well as a native businessman.

The short story that I gleaned from those conversations was that there is a lot of blame.  The commercial fishermen argue that they pretty much keep a set size of fish and the real big fish (the real breeding stock) tear away or straighten hooks and become free.  They argue that while they catch a lot of fish, they have for years and while all sides argue that the numbers are down and that their quotas keep dropping, they don't feel responsible because their side hasn't changed.

The charter guys hate the commercial guys and visa versa.  It is simple competition on who gets the fish.  The charter guys have a real hard time thinking that they have much impact because they catch so few of fish in comparison that it can't make that much of a difference.  They will however admit that they are under pressure to catch fish and they fish as hard as possible.  They will fish a hole until they don't catch anymore, move on and repeat.  The commercial guys will then argue back that the charter guys target the real big fish and the removal of those "trophies" are what is reducing the overall numbers.

The part I found most interesting in all of this was from the mouth of this old fisherman that just said it how he saw it, no BS.  He said that "mark his words, halibut fishing is done in 4 years" (in the SE). 

I don't know if I added anything of value to this thread, but it is a real problem, complicated and certainly not as simple as some may believe.

Gringo

[Special T]

Do you think a size bracket like what they have for sturgen would prevent this kind of thing? Over a certain size under another?

[daddysprad]

I went on a halibut party boat charter trip out of Seward this year.  Three of us caught our limits on the two days we fished.  We had an interesting conversation with a deckhand.  He had been working that charter for 5 years paying for his education as a fish biologist.  He said that the average sport caught halibut out of Seward had gone from 22 lbs to 14 lbs in those five years and that each year they had to travel further out in the ocean to find fish blaming it on commercial and sport fishing.  He also said that there were only 2 days in those 5 years where all 16 fishermen on board did not catch their limit of two.  That particular charter company fish every day of the season with 5-44 ft boats.  He thought that there should be a limit where fish over 100 pounds had to be released.  For one thing, the fish over that size don’t taste near as good as well as being the breeding stock.  As far as I know he could have been a homeless guy who stowed away on the boat with realy nice rain gear, but this young man had me convinced.

[Angus]

 The commercial guys will then argue back that the charter guys target the real big fish and the removal of those "trophies" are what is reducing the overall numbers.

What did they expect? The commercial fleet bitched for years that the charter halibut take needed to be reduced because the charter fleet had grown far beyond what the original sport halibut quota's alloted, so they, with their very deep pockets, pushed for a 1 fish limit and eventually got it.
I've guided in Ak. since 1990, for 17 years most of my guests were happy with 2 respectable chicken halibut a day, some people wanted to target bigger fish but not not alot of them and most were happy with 1 big fish during their trip (multi-day trips). Now that we have a 1 fish daily limit, very few people want 1 chicken, they pay big $$$ and want to put meat in the box and aren't happy with 1 25 pounder. In the last 3 seasons I've killed way more 100+ pound halibut then the previous 17 combine, not that I wanted to, I had too. So if the commercial guys want to bitch now about us taking the breeders, I say, tough *censored*, should have thought about that a little sooner. I'll be back in June to do it again but unlike the first 17 years where I tagged and released alot of big butts, I'll be whackin an stackin most of them.

[WDFW-SUX]

I release anything over 75 but thats cuz they arent as good on the table IMO.

[sisu]

Below is some info on Halibut  by catch and waste from the Trawler Fishery, it speaks for itself.  
 
The Alaska trawl industry, supported by the IPHC and NOAA fishing regulators, are dumping millions of pounds of halibut back into the water dead.  These trawlers are allowed, by current federal regulations for 2011, to dump the following
Gulf of Alaska Halibut Allowable Mortality. 2000 MT = over 4,400,000 lbs
Bering Sea halibut allowable mortality. 3675 MT= over 8,080,000 lbs
Bering sea Red King Crab Mortality. 197,000 ea
Bering sea Opilio Crab mortality. 4,350,000 ea
Bering sea Baridi Crab mortality 3,361,000ea.
This is a waste of millions of dollars and very harmful to the economy and the ecology of our state. 12.5 million lbs of halibut would be about 50 million dollars dock price, the crab waste in dollars is even a higher dollar amount. However most of these halibut are small young fish less than 1-10lbs that would be worth many more dollars if left to reach 25lb-375lbs and in extreme circumstance larger. Why limit the 6 pack charter boats when this type of resource waste is not only allowed but mandated by the federal government. This has been happening for decades and the IPHC, NOAA, and the Trawl industry stakeholders have been very successful in their efforts at keeping this a low profile issue.
The IPHC has no interest in putting a halt to this waste as they would much rather trawlers catch and dump these fish than retain them and bring them to market as it would flood a limited market and lower the price that their stakeholders now receive for halibut. It has nothing to do with conservation and everything to do with greed. I hope the charter sector and the public wake up to the fact that they are being lied too and fooled into believing that there is need to reduce the charter fleet but not a reason to reduce Halibut mortality and waste.
 
All recreational Halibut fisherman need to wake-up.  We do not want NOAA and the IPHC board managing our recreational fishery for the good $$$$ of the Commercial Halibut fisherman.  Give the State back management of our Recreational Halibut Fishery within our 3 mile territorial limit.  They can manage it in Federal waters!