Kind of makes you wonder, who benefits from blaming resource depletion on climate change.

Its a simplistic observation. These people harvest to sell food. As long as the demand for food, is higher than the supply, then the resource will suffer. Some of you have seen the harvest graph on Columbia river salmon between 1865 thru the late 1800 and early 1900.
It went nearly vertical for ten years give or take and then began to drop off until the introduction of hatcheries and other species of salmon.

The only thing we have done is procreate and sell more and more seafood. Fish farms were written about in the early 70's as a possible solution to seafood demand. Now we have sardines being harvest to feed tuna hatchery operations in Australia. Whether its the Grand Banks cod fishery, the lobsterman, deadliest catch or swordfish, the fight isnt about allocation. Its about food supply. Either way, sportfishing is losing to the multiple vendors and downstream beneficiaries of boats, nets, bait, processing equipment, packaging equipment, trucking, of every building and every contractor needed to make the buildings. That doesnt include the tax revenue at every level. We can run out of fish, before we run out of oil. When govts begin a undercover program to kill seals, you'll know, seafood supplies wont feed the people.

As you know there are more farms since the 70's and we have side effects in the form of sealice on wild smolts that wander by the net pens. They kill smolts. In addition there are ecological costs from fish waste. Meanwhile our native runs arent coming back.

Until we find new ways to produce egg row, and fish meat for the world population seafood market, we will continue to take a back seat to commercial harvest and we will lose the allocation fights and our resource in the long run. I personally think, that unless the demand for food is solved, the CCA wins in 15 other states will not only be under pressure from Federal intervention, the Feds will unravel much of the gains.

How many people know, that the federal government told commercial fisherman, they would buy the commercial fishermen a new net, if they get hung up on the underwater phone line that goes to Europe, in the Atlantic. Of course anyone with a lick of sense would just say that area is a MPA, or off limits. But not our feds.

Here is the problem.It should not just be a few "whiney" charter captains but the entire sportfishing industry looking to protect your rights.our rights.It should be bass fishermen,trout fishermen,catfish fishermen etc as a whole.The divisions amongst the sportsmen are the weakness.We will never have [censored] to say untill we UNITE and form a lobby that matters.

climate change is nothing more than a huge distraction being exploited to the benifit of a few and our very own goverment.

I understand about them targetting the bycatch species. What I'm saying is that there has to be a better way.

Basically, you get X number of days to fish. That's it. Keep what you catch and throw no marketable fish away. Use gear restrictions to limit what type of species are caught, like using a turtle excluder type device to keep the big fish out of the net.

Seriously, there has to be a better way.

Loved this TIC response from the Alaska board...

Come on, you guys are not seeing both sides of the argument....

1) Commercial fishing is high regulated here in Alaska

2) Trawlers were catching and wasting those halibut before the "commercial charter" fleet started stealing halibut from the ocean for the general public to catch and eat.

3) Nothing goes to waste in the ocean, the 15 millions pounds of juvenile halibut thrown back in dead, is really just food for the rest of the halibut to grow faster

4) The State and Federal government is making sure that all the fish are being allocated to the highest and best use....so don't worry about those fish being thrown back in dead...Cod are just more important...

5) It was just one bad tow, they don't usually catch that many.....

6) The checks in the mail.....

What should happen is that the trawlers should have to keep every single halibut they catch, record their harvest and sell the fish and give the money back to the IFQ shareholders for the fish they accidentally caught while pursuing high value fish like cod(.30 cents a pound) or Turbot ( .20 cents a pound). If you compare the burden us illegal commercial charter operators have to go through to document every single fish our recreational fishing clients catch, to what is going on in that video, it should make you a little concerned...

Been a big fan of 100% retention for trawlers for years. Everything counted, processed, used for fishmeal or donated, its been done in the North Sea for Years. Skipper hits his bycatch cap before he reaches his allocations he gets to paint boat for the rest of the year.

I have wondered about the same thing on 90,000 chinook bycatch in the pollock fishery. I dont know what happens to those fish. I dont know if those fish go against the nearest future harvest of salmon in Alaska.

Those tube nets are necessary to make that big processing ship profitable. What worries me is if they build anymore of those, its nothing more than a license to over harvest.

I wonder if Alaska charges more for a commercial license to out of state fisherman from Seattle. The cost of licensing and travel, is a cost of doing business. When it gets too high, they either give it up or go somewhere else.

Great plan. When the habitat no longer sustains harvestable levels of many species of commercial catch, what will do, besides shrug your shoulders.

LB it makes no sense for one boat to throw fish back that could be used for fish food, and then have another go out and catch more.

I dont know how you came up with your conclusion about my post. Im not arguing efficiency. Im talking about tearing up the habitat with bottom dragger gear until the food chain is destroyed. The attitude displayed by some in commercial harvest is, the Ends Justfiies the Means. Trawlers dont care about anything except their next paycheck. Oh, ya, its all about the sea. What a rush.

I wonder how close those Norwegians get to the sunken Nuclear equipment off the coast of Russia.

Here's a visual that puts trawling into everyday perspective.

Imagine the trash company coming thru your neighborhood to gather the weeks "collectibles". Except this time they use the equivalent of a giant combine to strip everything on ground level thru the entire neighborhood, laying waste to everything in its path.

Now it's simply a matter of sorting the carnage for the "real" trash while leaving the rest behind.

Lovely.

Just wanted to say.....shinything.....stick around

This situation is very hard to understand for inland folks and they are the consumer. The language used and the evidence presented is difficult for someone not close to the conflict to understand. If action is to be done you must unite the masses and make it clear to them that there is something wrong with this. Else a pile of fish just looks like a pile of fish.

To make j 7's comment even more simple...

So long as there is a demand, there will be a supply.

Fish on...

Todd

Yup and even a selective hatchery salmon fisherie requires fishfood/meal to start the process, it has to come from somewhere. I wonder if they have tried feeding smolts ground seal meat?

It is scary how efficent they are and the same for the long liners, the ones around Yakutat make the sport fishery seem non-existant!

IFQ's don't represent the public, just the processers.

NOAA describes it as ecosystem based management. It is their shining example of what a great job they do. They manage the groundfish and pollack trawl fisheries for a sustainable catch of the target species while avoiding a total collapse of the ecosystem. The international Halibut Commission manages halibut and they are responsible for accounting for the bycatch in their plans. Similarly, they regard the salmon bycatch in the pollack fishery as a necessary part of the fishery, it is only a political problem. I had hoped that Lubchenco might bring a new awareness about the bycatch issue but it doesn't seem to be the case. In fact beginning next year NOAA research is going to emphasize exploring the Arctic region for potential new fisheries as the ice cap shrinks. After all NOAA is a part of the Department of Commerce



At trawl speeds of 3-4 knots salmon do avoid trawls, the pollack fishery that trawls at a higher speed has the salmon bycatch.

While not the subject of this thread, I heard of another bycatch problem that is of interest. I was told that a can of pink salmon from SE Alaska might contain up to 10% chinook. Apparently the pink seine fishery catches a lot of immature chinook that go to the cannery. This was second hand info so I can't vouch for the accuracy but it makes sense.

WN1A, while I certainly can't vouch for all canneries, I spent a couple of summers at a pink cannery and I can say that no species other than pinks were canned. Either the high graders or the slimers always removed them from the line, either went back in the bay or home if anyone wanted them. Because they had been seined, they usually made better crab food than dining fare. Seems they almost always ended up at the bottom of the net, crushed.

I am not trying to say,infer that the salmon by catch is not truth. I am just letting you know my experience as a deck hand on a very successful factory trawler.

There is plenty of paper out there documenting and discussing this problem.I do believe that location is a huge factor and this had a lot to do with us seeing chum not chinook.