Are you guys getting boned by your countrymen in Alaska?
As far as I know the US is still a democracy, if you don’t like your internal allocation and 12 day opening, why not get organized and engaged more in fund raising for sport fishing advocacy and engagement in the political process to change your internal halibut allocation and work on increasing your 12 day opening because it seems grossly unfair to me also, even given your population is 10 times ours and you have a smaller area of operation.
True, but is not your national quota divided up by your own government. Perhaps less Alaska quota would or should result in more for the lower 48. It's how you decide to divide your pie and has nothing to do with us.not really as 2A is shared with CA, OR and WA. what probably needs to happen is 2B quotas along JDF need to include the US side of the strait. or, i'll just buy a non-resident license, cross on the days I can and take advantage of your generous quota and number of fishing days.
True, but is not your national quota divided up by your own government. Perhaps less Alaska quota would or should result in more for the lower 48. It's how you decide to divide your pie and has nothing to do with us.
This would seem to suggest the fish are not migratory and remain in one artificially designated area? I suggest that if they are migratory, the fish move between areas. If that's true less pressure in one area may result in more fish in another. Am I mistaken?that's not how the allocation works. this is based on samples taken in each management area, they can't be transferred from one management area to another. what comprises the management areas, I believe, needs to be reworked and that includes 2A and 2B. so no matter how much you complain about AK fisheries, that is not going to change unless the biomass sampling indicates it needs to be modified. and keep in mind the methodology for this sampling has been going on for decades so the data does have some precedence. what happens from that point, '...you have so many #s of fish ...' is up to the local government entities determining seasons and so forth. it is at that level that things get messy and can't really be statistically justified. and it is at that level that the pressure is applied, to date, without success.
This would seem to suggest the fish are not migratory and remain in one artificially designated area? I suggest that if they are migratory, the fish move between areas. If that's true less pressure in one area may result in more fish in another. Am I mistaken?
so explain just how you would go about determining biomass and setting catch total tonnage.............i'll standby. certainly fish move but the sampling has to nail one end of the board down in order to come up with a total allowable catch. you seem to think this moving target can somehow be defined by another means. by all means, go ahead and explain your concept so everyone can understand what you are driving at.
AK is run by the sea food industry, just like BC. the total allowable catch is not determined by this industry, however. what is not controlled is the by catch and overharvest by commercials. that is where the slippery slope happens to be with the AK fishery. if by catch were limited or controlled and harvest quotas were strictly enforced, we would have a different scenario in AK. but there is next to no motivation to implement any solutions simply because of the sea food industry running the state, same as BC or you would not have any issues with net pens.
There was a lot of moaning, but nobody doubted the resource needed some TLC. The way it was done will always be open to question but at least something was done
Halibut Options paper is now out to SFAC Chairs. Excellent job done to get this out as early as possible to maximize opportunity for input. If interested you should contact your local chair. Bear in mind the options are based upon same TAC as in 2013. IPHC is announcing their interim forecast for Area 2B at 4.98 million pounds or 747,000 pounds based on 85/15 split. To put in perspective that is 333,450 pounds less than 2013. That would be about 26 days in peak season(not factoring in shifts in variables impacting catch).
There are several options that have been forecast for the SFAC's to provide input into the Halibut Working Group. Your best way to provide input is to work within your local SFAC.
Also, we should take all this with a huge grain of salt until we actually know the TAC. IMO hugely speculative without actually knowing the final TAC announcement, which will come on Jan 17 at the final IPHC meeting. Good idea to provide input on possible options, but we should all strongly consider there well could be some last minute scrambling to recalculate various options if the TAC announcement is lower than 2013 TAC (1,080,450 pounds). I recall a lot of anger posted in prior years because the final decision process happens very quickly.
Timelines for decisions are basically compressed, but less so than in previous years because the 2014 regulations will need to be posted in time for online licenses to be developed and loaded (no paper fishing licenses this year). IPHC TAC announcement is Jan 17 and licenses have to go up April 01, so likely they need to be loaded into system in early March - roughly 6 weeks.
Size limit is not the way to go. People want to catch a fish of a lifetime and get pictures with them. Options that include a fish of any size should be those considered. I had to release a couple over 80lbs this year and could of used that meat in my freezer.