Community Perspective

The good news is that halibut charter sport fishermen in Southcentral Alaska, including Valdez, will still be able to catch two fish per day and have four fish in possession, at least for 2010.

The bad news is that halibut charter fishermen in Southeast Alaska were forced into a one-fish limit in 2009, and it will continue for the foreseeable future. Further restrictions, such as weekly nonfishing days and seasonal limits, drastically affect charter boat owners, lodge operators and the shore-based businesses that rely on them.

Nonguided halibut sport fishermen in all of Alaska are still able to follow the two- and four-fish limit, for the time being.

Please note that per the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s published statistics, charter and nonguided halibut sport and subsistence fishermen account for 10-15 percent of the total halibut caught each year. Commercial longliners control the remaining 85-90 percent of the catch, including bycatch.

The commercial longliners have worked under a individual fishing quota permit system, with limited entry, since 1995 when the initial statewide catch limit was set by the International Pacific Halibut Commission at 48.4 million pounds. The commercial IFQ catch limit is adjusted annually by the commission to reflect the health and sustainability of the halibut fishery.

The commercial catch limit peaked in 2003 at 74.4 million pounds and has predictably cycled downward to the present IPHC-mandated catch limit of 50.67 million pounds for 2010. That’s a 6.3 percent decrease from 2009’s 54.08 million-pound catch limit.

It should be noted that these commercial fishing IFQs were issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as recommended by the various commercial-dominated councils — the federal North Pacific Fishery Management Council and the state Board of Fisheries — without much regard to sport fishermen, guided or nonguided, or subsistence users.

The halibut charter fleets in Southeast and Southcentral have been growing since the early 1990s, which resulted in a guideline harvest level being forced on the charter fleet by NOAA in August 2003.

The guideline harvest limit acts like a soft cap, and the management measures mandated by it have led to the one-fish limit in Southeast.

The Southeast charter fleet drastically exceeded its 1.43-million-pound guideline harvest level every year after 2003 by 22.2–114.7 percent.

The Southcentral charter fleet exceeded its 3.65-million-pound guideline harvest level by 0.4–9.6 percent in just four of the years since 2003, and it has been below the guideline harvest since 2007. Hence, it has retained the two-fish limit.

Nevertheless, a moratorium on new charter operator entrants, through a limited entry permit program, has been in the works since about 2003 and will go into effect on Feb. 1, 2011.

The limited entry program will issue permits to charter operators who have a qualifying, logbook-documented catch history in 2004 or 2005 and 2008. Approximately 62 percent of the 854 charter businesses active in Alaska in 2008 will receive limited entry permits in 2010.

In addition to the limited entry program, the federal government’s North Pacific council is implementing a “catch-sharing plan” that is formula-driven based on annual total catch by commercial and sport fishermen. Final rule-making for the catch-sharing plan probably will happen in 2010. The plan likely will reduce the guideline harvest levels by instituting management measures, such as allowing only one fish longer than 32 inches and one fish under 32 inches, or worse. This will bring down the charter sport catch in 2011.

Since nonguided sport fishermen account for more than 35 percent of the sport catch, they, too, likely soon will be targeted for halibut catch restrictions.

Ken L Larson is the past president and current secretary of the Prince William Sound Charter Boat Association and has sport fished in the sound since 1984. He has operated Sanity Charters since 1993.