HALIBUT CLOSURE

This is a load of crap!

Forcing the purchase of quota on us.

I'm not going to beat a dead hali here but they have stuck to their guns on this quota thing and haven't budged.

Cut it off for conservation if that is what is necessary but don't Fck'n tell me I can keep fishing if I pay for it!
I won't do it.

Tips
 
Derby,

I thank you and all the advocates that fight so hard for recreational fishing opportunities.

I started fishing when I was about 10 in the Fraser River and lakes all over BC. When I turned 17, Due to school, Collage, Chasing around women I stopped fishing for about 15 years. I have recently returned to the sport, As I am getting my 2 year old son into it. We went to a local hatchery and released Chinook into the the Alouette River this year. We took park in other various stream keeper activities.

I can count how many salmon I've taken on my two hands, Fraser river sockeye in the late 90's and now 5 Chinook this year (fishing with my dad in the salt). Never fished for any bottom fish or retained any in my life. Planned on going halibut fishing because I like the meat, from a sporting perspective I have been told it's like bringing up a brick. Its fine I get it, If its from a conservation point of view. To hear once again that Jimmy politics are winning out its sad.

Fish farms are fine, they allow the average person to eat salmon with out impacting wild stocks (If they are on land).

It pains me to see how I and him are loosing opportunities everywhere. Can't go down to the Fraser this year to cast for pinks, Can't go Halibut fishing. I will have to plan better next year but like I said I am newly returning to this sport.

I encourage everyone to go out and support habitat projects. The one thing i have lent about donating my time to projects, stream keepers, hatcheries is that 50% or more of the volunteers don't even fish.

Incredible respect for all those working to preserve this resource and to get opportunity to assess it.

So thanks again Derby
 
We are working thru some options in dealing with hali this year... so stay tuned... a couple of these will and may require everyone rolling up there sleeves & helping out.. please everyone remember this is about 15/85 allocation and not conversation... and we all need to stick and stay together shoulder to shoulder on this issue... be assured that they are being looked at .....
 
Question about buying quota
My understanding is some Lodges bought quota this year in order to avoid the size restrictions imposed on Sport Fishers.
If 6 Lodge boats go out and catch at total of 24 or more halibut in a day, some oversize, which is taken based on them buying quota how does DFO differentiate that day between the halibut which should come from the Commercial Quota and not the Sport quota.
My understanding is the Sport catch of Halibut is all done by ESTIMATES of fish caught per boat Province wide determined by flyovers.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
Another couple of question.
Does DFO keep records of to who and exactly how much Commercial quote is sold and if it's all used?
I assume as the Commercial Sector quota has not been reached if Commercial Quota can still be purchased.
Can anyone tell me where the Commercial Sector stand on reaching their quota?
 
We are working thru some options in dealing with hali this year... so stay tuned... a couple of these will and may require everyone rolling up there sleeves & helping out.. please everyone remember this is about 15/85 allocation and not conversation... and we all need to stick and stay together shoulder to shoulder on this issue... be assured that they are being looked at .....

Thank's Derby and everyone else that are working on this problem. I'm ready to do whatever it takes to help. You know how to contact me. :mad:
 
it would be a great help if you can answer the question above for me ..as I know that is a great strength u have :)
 
We are working thru some options in dealing with hali this year... so stay tuned... a couple of these will and may require everyone rolling up there sleeves & helping out.. please everyone remember this is about 15/85 allocation and not conversation... and we all need to stick and stay together shoulder to shoulder on this issue... be assured that they are being looked at .....

Let me know.
 
Starting to wonder......

Try to do things the right way, supporting the SFI and all the processes, attend all the sfab meetings, fill in the logbooks and yet us sport fishers as a group get the ****** end of the stick.

4 cancellations for this month already and I'm sure there's more coming.
That doesn't bother me as much as limiting my access to fish that should belong to all Canadian citizens, not 85% controlled by a select few that can manipulate the prices
 
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I personally don't find anything fun about dragging a brick up from the sea. I like the meat and when I saw there was an opportunity to go Halibut fishing and walk away in meat, what it cost for the guide made going worth it.

That's the spirit. Forgo the experience and just try to pay for the over priced guide trip with "meat". That way of thinking is part of the problem.
 
Question about buying quota
My understanding is some Lodges bought quota this year in order to avoid the size restrictions imposed on Sport Fishers.
If 6 Lodge boats go out and catch at total of 24 or more halibut in a day, some oversize, which is taken based on them buying quota how does DFO differentiate that day between the halibut which should come from the Commercial Quota and not the Sport quota.
I suspect that the rec quota would be used first then if there was overage then it would go on the commercial quota. Most lodges do logbooks that should distinguish between rec and commercial, so dfo would know the difference. Not sure how much commercial quota was leased this year but in the past it has been between 6 and 8 thousand pounds. When dealing with small numbers like this it would not factor in on the estimates on the TAC of the recreational fishery.

My understanding is the Sport catch of Halibut is all done by ESTIMATES of fish caught per boat Province wide determined by flyovers.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
There are a number of ways that DFO estimates the TAC, not just flyovers. guide log books, dockside survey, iRec, trailer counts and lodge log books. These methods have been peer reviewed and found to be fairly accurate. Are they perfect... no but they are cost efficient and if done the same way over time are well suited for purpose...... check out page 5 in this pdf.
http://www.iphc.int/meetings/2017am/IPHC-2017-AM093-AR08b.pdf


Another couple of question.
Does DFO keep records of to who and exactly how much Commercial quote is sold and if it's all used?
I assume as the Commercial Sector quota has not been reached if Commercial Quota can still be purchased.
Can anyone tell me where the Commercial Sector stand on reaching their quota?

DFO does keep track of how much Commercial TAC is leased to the Rec sector and reports it to everyone. This TAC is transferred out of the Commercial sector. Based on memory not much of the TAC is actually used as the numbers I recall seems that more than half is never used. It should be noted that you can carry over your unused TAC but I'm not clear if it's the whole amount or just a percentage.

I'm no expert on the whole program but I know enough that I personally would never use it. It just goes against everything I value as an avid angler.
 
[QUOTE
It should be noted that you can carry over your unused TAC but I'm not clear if it's the whole amount or just a percentage.
I'm no expert on the whole program but I know enough that I personally would never use it. It just goes against everything I value as an avid angler.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the information GLG
Can you or someone tell me if the Sport sector were allowed to carry over it's unused TAC from previous years?
It seems inconsistent to me that a person who purchases TAC can carry it over from one year to the other.
Regardless of the carry over inconsistency, it appears to me there is lots of room for dishonest person's with purchased TAC to cheat.
That being said, I agree the bigger problem is with the allocation of TAC between Commercial and Sport fishers.
 
Well this SUCKS eh!! If a full season is important to you anyways. Or in my case you where working on plans for a late sept ,early Oct Halibut trip . HA HA!

Is anyone really surprised by this? Honestly we could see this from a mile away. 15% was not enough years ago wen we got the extra 3%, and it is not enough now. Yes some very hardworking creative thinking folks managed to keep us in full seasons for a few extra years. Yes many of us are appreciative of that fact,and understand this would have come sooner had it not been for those efforts. Bottom line is we have proven that playing with the math to make the same bad situation look different from year to year has not solved our problems. The fact that we are right back to where we where wen everyone got pissed off and pulled together
proves that point.

I agree fully that we need to go after a higher percentage of the TAC. I also understand that a large effort has been made to show that the rec sector is a leader in taking steps to manage our fishery in a responsible, and accountable way. So now it is time to use those facts to go after a proper share of the resource that will better represent the value,and needs of our sector.
No I do not agree with splitting our sector into more segments with such foolishness as guide and lodge rec quota and non vested rec quota. . How do you think that would go wen quota dips really low and we are facing crappy heavily restricted salmon seasons. How much more value will be put on that quota and how much narrower do you think the funnel will get. Do we not think those with the most $ in the game will not yet again come out on top.
This ITQ SCAM that was passed off as a management tool continues to push more and more opportunity and access away from the Joe Canadian and funnel it to less and less people. If we continue to put all our effort into trying to make things work within this scam instead of pushing as hard and as publicly as possible against ITQ, private ownership of 85% of the resource, and the two teared divisive quota leasing BS we will never see any substantial long term change.

Nothing in this post is intended to be in the spirit of criticizing the SFAB ect, for we would be lost without them and I for one am grateful for the work done.. The only reason I jumped in on this is in the hope that the complacency that has fallen upon many of us will come to an end and folks will start getting interested in the big picture again. If we go down the road of splitting our sector or trying to raise money to buy our way into more quota we will only be speeding up the inevitable end game that the ITQ SCAM is on a very deliberate path to achieving.

These are my thoughts on the matter. they have not changed since I was first made aware of the ITQ back wen we rallied for the 3%..Guess thats why this posts reads the same as countless others I have made over the last number of years.

Just to ad clarity to my thoughts. It is my strong opinion that realizing an adjustment to the allocation alone will not make this go away. yes in the short term it will seem as though it has, but it will not have. Until the ITQ is gone,there will remain private ownership of quota,there for the continued stripping of access from non quota owners (unless very wealthy as it seams) .
 
Thanks for the information GLG
Can you or someone tell me if the Sport sector were allowed to carry over it's unused TAC from previous years?
It seems inconsistent to me that a person who purchases TAC can carry it over from one year to the other.
Regardless of the carry over inconsistency, it appears to me there is lots of room for dishonest person's with purchased TAC to cheat.
That being said, I agree the bigger problem is with the allocation of TAC between Commercial and Sport fishers.

Yes we (rec TAC) do carry over quota but it's a percentage and not the whole amount. I think it's 10% but don't quote me on that..... Yes there is room for the dishonest person to cheat but thankfully most anglers are fair minded and honest, at least that is my hope.
 
Yes we (rec TAC) do carry over quota but it's a percentage and not the whole amount. I think it's 10% but don't quote me on that..... Yes there is room for the dishonest person to cheat but thankfully most anglers are fair minded and honest, at least that is my hope.

Are we sure on this one. My understanding is that the REC sector has no option to carry over. The commercial fleet has regularly fished to 90% and had a carry over of 10%. Have I had this wrong?
 
Are we sure on this one. My understanding is that the REC sector has no option to carry over. The commercial fleet has regularly fished to 90% and had a carry over of 10%. Have I had this wrong?
I'll have to look it up but I think that Canadian TAC is reported at the end of the year and any underage gets carried over but only 10% of that total amount. Conversely if we go over then I think 100% needs to be subtracted from the next season.

edit: so i looked it up and it seem I'm right as you can see how DFO handles overage/underage on this pdf. See note A and B on page 5
http://www.iphc.int/meetings/2017am/IPHC-2017-AM093-AR08a.pdf

edit: yea it's not that clear in the tables of this pdf that it shows the rec carryover but I recall asking that same question last year to the halibut working group and was assured that we do carryover but it's such a small amount (10%) that it really doesn't effect our fishing plans when making decisions on what the rules of the upcoming season will be. Rest assured them boy's are on it.
 
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A little off topic but As I was driving around today I started to wonder with the timing of this announcement if it isn't DFO's way of taking the focus off all the negativity around fish farming.

Start another battle between the sectors and while we all fight each other DFO gets to continue to mismanage.
 
Also don't stop at writing only fisheries. There is a new provincial government in power and while they do not have direct power over it, they do have influence. I am emailing them asking for them to call for 22% for the rec sector ... As they are the party that is said to go against corporations and such. I'll be emailing the provincial government as well outlining the economic reasons for it.
 
No underage for rec sector gets carried over
yea it seems like that looking at the pdf but I'm going to go through some of my documents on it so I'll report back. I just recall this came up in the past and we did get underage transferred. I could be wrong but that's what I recall.
 
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