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

Mike Gilchrist
Recreational Fishing Alliance

I'm going to make a call or two and find out some more details on the locales ... if it's where I think it is, the sport catch is about 8% of the total harvest and they're going to make it tough on a lot of operations ... I'll post more soon!

You would know better than I Bob on % for specific area. I was given relayed a number of I believe total Alaska catch and what I was told was 2%.

Regardless, this is a blow to recreational fishing no mater what the percentage.