Fishing Update / Doc Warners - Alaska Fishing Adventures

Fishing Updates

The ‘war’ for allocation of halibut has been growing more intense each year. In 2010 the commercial harvest allotment was reduced by 620,000 pounds for Southeast Alaska. No changes were made in the Sport Fishery. HOWEVER, next year the sport catch of halibut for those fishing from Charter Boats in both Areas 2C (Southeast Alaska) and 3A (South Central Alaska) is being significantly reduced. Not only is the daily bag limit on Charter Boats being reduced to one-fish-per-day, but in order for a Charter Boat to quality to fish for halibut they must have Fishing Log Book data to prove they fished in either 2004 or 2005, and in 2008. The Charter Boats will then be given a quota they can catch based on their trips and harvest recorded in their Log Books.

Preliminary estimates indicate that throughout Alaska as many as 47% of all charter boats cannot qualify to fish for halibut in 2011 because they do not meet the 2004/2005 and 2008 requirements.

Clearly the recent round of negotiations and law suits has gone in favor of the Commercial fishermen.

This is not the end of the potential bad news. The Charter Boat fishery has been allocated 10% of the total halibut catch for Area 2C each year; Commercial fishermen get 90%. Before the actual poundage for allotment is given the catch for non-guided Sport Fishing (Alaska residents and visitors who do not use Charter Boats), subsistence and personal use harvest are subtracted from the forecast allowable harvest. The poundage remaining is then spread between Commercial (90%) and Charter Boat (10%) fishermen.

Commercial fishing interests are not happy with the current allocation method where non-guided harvest is subtracted before they get their quotas. They are lobbing to have all sport caught halibut, guided and non-guided, lumped into the same 10% currently set aside for the Charter Boat fishery. On top of that there are those who would have halibut be a total commercial fishery and anyone wishing to sport fish for halibut from a Charter boats would have to annually lease a part of the commercial fishermen’s quota. Thus, the commercial fishermen would control the sport fishery by deciding whether or not to lease some of their quota.

Unfortunately, final decisions will be made in the political arena more often than on the biological data. The poundage of allowable harvest of halibut will come from test fishing. The allocation will come through strength of political connections. Our difficulty in competing politically stems from our small size and organization. Commercial fisheries interests combine all fishermen, processors, and sales and marketing together and claim a $1.3 billion presence in Alaska. They have lobbyists, full-time executive directors, and money behind their efforts to influence federal legislation. Sport fishing is fragmented and poor in relation to the Commercial fishing organization.

Finally, a recent notice on the news contains a query into whether the Federal Government was going to allocate certain fishing locations throughout the United States to specific interest groups. The Feds denied that’s what they are doing but didn’t explain what their real intent was.

It’s too bad that such a wonderful pass-time of fishing has reached the ranks of the politicians.

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