Do you think about an Alaska Halibut trip

[Mike Gilchrist]

Ever thought about going up there and going after one of those huge slabs? Its just about to get more expensive and you may not enjoy your experience as much.

We only have until the end of this month to say anything about this. I will put all the contact info at the bottom of this message. At one time we thought we had this fixed, but its back and we have to hurry to get something done about it.

Currently the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council (NPFMC) is considering using a Individual Fishing Quota (IFQ) to regulate all recreational Halibut charter boats in areas 2C and 3A.

If you are not already familiar, the way the IFQ system works is the federal government issues a yearly quota (in pounds) of Halibut to charter boats. It is a one time allocation, the charter then owns that quota indefinatly. The charter boat must then make that quota last all year. All or part of the quota is sellable and can be borrowed against. Quite simply, this is the federal government giving away ownership of a public resource.
The result of this is not completly clear, except one thing is for certain... The cost to take a recreational charter boat in Alaska will climb. There are several scenerios, some or all of which may happen:

1) When the quota is fully used by charter boats, they will be forced purchase additional quota from commercial fishing boats (if anyone is willing to sell) and they will be forced to pass that cost on to the customer. So if all the charter quota is used and the commercials wont sell, I guess we can't fish any more because the commercials
wont sell part of their 98%.

2) The charter boat will only be selling the fishing. The Halibut will belong to the charter and the angler would have to pay extra to keep their catch.

3) The charter will charge extra to keep large Halibut that count more of their quota.

4) The charter will only take customers to places most likely to produce small halibut, again to conserve the quota.

5) Only a certain number of Halibut can be caught per trip, example: 10 person boat, only five Halibut allowed to be caught.

6) Trophy fish only, no keeping small ones. Instead of six 40lb fish, one 100lb fish, and one 150lb fish on a trip, the only keepers would be the 100lb & 150lb fish.

The NPFMC voted 10-1 (Bob Penney was against) to approve the final draft ifq proposal in mid Feb. Both of the Washington State reps voted in favor. I have information that a second vote will be against it when presented for final vote (Robert Mace from Oregon). The final vote is April 5th at the Anchorage meeting. This is simply a power play by the commercial industry to cap the amount of recreational harvest. The argument is that the charter boats are "out of control, and unregulated" What is even more rediculous is that the commercial fishing industry takes
more Halibut in by-catch during other fisheries than the entire sport harvest.

The Anchorage Daily News also ran some articles against it. Drop me a message if you would like to read them.

If passed it sets up a possible expansion of this system. There has been reference to the IFQ system on the Pacific Fisheries Management Council website so we could see it
here in the Northwest as well.


Contact info:

The Washington State voting member of the NPFMC is our director Jeff Koenings. E-mail him at:

director@dfw.wa.gov

The Oregon voting member is Robert Mace as mentioned above. I am told he will vote against it, but his contact info should be in the link below if you want it

The others you can contact are listed at this site:
http://www.fakr.noaa.gov/npfmc/council.htm

Mike Gilchrist
Recreational Fishing Alliance

[spooner]

How do they plan on policeing this. and how do they determen how much quota each lodge or boat gets.I think If they wont to regulate it they should make a minimum and maxumum size limit the big grandmas are no good to eat and there all femails a mail rairly gets over 90lbs. I dont see how there going to wiegh all the sport caught fish every day. some lodges are way out in the boonys.

[This message has been edited by spooner (edited 03-10-2001).]

[Mike Gilchrist]

I wish I could find a map of the areas in Alaska, but I have not yet. I would guess that 2C and 3A are probably your most populated areas.

As far as regulation, it would be some sort of catch log system like the commercials use. Since daily limits on fish per person are not applicable, total catch in lbs is the only relevent number. How accurate are commercials at reporting their catch?

The allocation of quota's is 125% of current usage. It gets allocated to charter vessels an a "how much have you caught lately" basis. Except, some IFQ's will be held out and distributed to locations in more remote areas to help with economic growth.

[rcl187]

I don't know exactly how they will keep track of all the charter caught fish but I don't see it as being to hard in the larger cities-just those small flyin charter operations. As for the commercial fishermen what they catch is recorded very accurately. They are given a quota and are given a certain amount of time to fill it. Their catch is recorded wherever they happen to unload and kept track of by the fishermen, the cannery and I think the state. I can see how regulating the charter boats would improve stocks but I think that they should concentrate on harvesting smaller fish instead of just one or two large ones because-as mentioned earlier large fish are female.

[Mike Gilchrist]

While I find it great that conservation is allways the first thought, in this case there is more to it.

Why should anglers allways be the most highly regulated. Is targeting the smaller fish and allowing the larger females to continue to breed better for the resource, yes, sure it is. When your only talking 2% of the total catch, is it an issue, not really.

Regardless if you agree with it, Alaska is a trophy fishery with anglers spending lots of money to go up there to catch those large females. Personally, I might also want to have my picture taken with one of those Halibut thats bigger than I am at some point in my life. Its part of angling and there will allways be people after the big fish.
Unnessesary regulation kills our sport, it drives the non-fanatic away. It gives us less of a voice with our politicians and gives the commercial industry more mower to control us. That is the bigest issue right now with these halibut.

[Shannon]

Yes the news has saddened me as well. I was going to hold off on booking a charter until after the results in April. I will not pay $ 185.00 to go park on a chicken patch for a quicky!

[spooner]

Mike where did you get all iths info on charter boats having to buy quota from comercal boats. and charging extra for big halibut is this your thery or is it fact.

[Mike Gilchrist]

If a particular charter boat is at their yealy quota, they will need to purchase or lease quota from another source. It is posible that that source could be another charter, but unlikely. The other source is commercial fishers. If they want to continue to make a profit, that cost will slip down to the angler. This part is fact.

The large Halibut part is just a logical conclusion. If charters are up against a quota, hey will have to find a way to conserve that quota for the durration of a year. Taking customers to places where ther are only smaller fish is one possible way to accomplish this. It may turn out that at the beginging of the year they would go after small fish, but if at the end of the year they still had lots of quota to use, they would increase limits and go after big fish. Another possibility is that they would go after small fish all year and what ever quota was left they would lease to commercials and get some cash back for it. Is it clear fact, no. I would have to consider it a likely possibility.

[Joe Schwab]

Mike, Some of your conclusions are fact and some could well become fact. I fished the Cook Inlet Charter Fishery for 6 years. I fought like hell to keep limited entry out but as a newcomer from Oregon was only one voice. All the locals could see was keeping others new to the business from coming in and taking their customers. My reply was if you are good enough you survive. Limited entry is a lot like a union. (dont get offended all you union members) It protects a lot of people who could not survive plain old competition. I have seen limited entry ruin the commercial Halibut Fishery. Yes it made it less dangerous but it also gave commercials the opportunity to fish all year and fish those areas where the charter boats usually fished. Setlines appeared inside Kachemak Bay, and Cook Inlet on the chicken holes. They were strictly on a poundage and yes there is record of commercials when they sell their fish. Charter boats have only logs that list numbers and not pounds. The industry proposed going on the average catch so it would not affect the size fish charters were catching only the numbers. Other proposals were doing away with crew limits. Limiting the number of trips per day.
Limiting the number of rods fished on the boats. Limited entry sucks and I want no part of it. Yes the price will go up. The charter industry says Alaska Charter fees are way below what the market will bear. If that is the case why are those charter outfits lowballing the prices at the last sportshows of the season? $150 per day is enough for any boat to survive provided he stays full. How much will it go to is anybodys guess but $250 has been tossed around as a good price. Limited entry is nothing more than price fixing. Hope it doesnt happen. Next will be restrictions on the kicker fleet. There seem to be enough halibut that commercials keep getting increases in quota. Alaska Fishing Journal recently reported that biologists had greatly underestimated the biomass of Halibut and quotas were increased. Write your congressmen and anyone else mentioned.