Halibut Meeting in Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows

[double trouble]

The BC Sportfishing Coalition is hosting a meeting about halibut at Meadow Gardens Golf Course on February 21st at 7 p.m. It is free of charge. There will be a short presentation about how we got to where we are, open discussion, and ideas on how we can get this issue fixed.
For those that don't know where Meadow Gardens is, it is located just off Lougheed Highway on the north side, one block east of Harris Road in Pitt Meadows. There is a Nissan dealer right on the corner where you turn off the highway to go to the course.
For anyone coming over the new Golden Ears bridge the course is at the north west corner of Golden Ears Way and Lougheed Highway. You have to go westbound on Lougheed one block and then turn right.

We've invited Randy Kamp, MP to attend but he hasn't responded to our emails yet on what dates he is available so we have had to go ahead without him. For those of you that don't know, Randy is the Parlimentary Secretary for Fisheries Minister Gail Shea. It would be nice if he could attend but maybe someone from his office can.

 

[double trouble]

In light of the announcement today it is even more important to show up and voice your displeasure. Hope to see you there!

 

[salmonlander]

I will be there.

 

[Governor]

For all you Fraser River anglers that don't fish halibut - READ THIS AND MAKE A WISE DECISION - You really need to come to the meeting and get informed about ALLOCATION. Halibut is the fish today but the ALLOCATION issue is the real problem and this nightmare is coming to your salmon fisheries real soon.

What Fisheries Minister Shea announced yesterday is privatisation of our fish resources and this NEW PRECEDENT SETTING EXPERIMENT will likely kick you in the gonads tomorrow... Please stand up for BC's sport fisheries and our right to access common property resources. We MUST win the halibut allocation issue!

Come to the meeting on February 21st at 7:00PM, bring a friend and find out why this is EVER SO important

 

[the fog ducker]

You gonna be there Govenor ?

this thread has been kickin a while ,

fd

 

[Governor]

Planning to be there - if work permits - been putting in big amount of time into coalition activity recently

Coming from Vancouver Island means an overnighter but more importantly Kamp needs to see big numbers of real pi$$ed off anglers. And BTW the topless bullriding and wobbly pop are a strong draw cards right now!

Yahoooooooooo

 

[double trouble]

Just a quick update on how the meeting went.
We started at about 7:15, ended by 10 or so. Approx 120 people of which about 30 were commercial halibut fisherman. One guy that didn't fish his quota, his son did. No slipper skippers. Randy Kamp was present as was Fin Donnely, the NDP Fisheries critic. Also in attendance was Dan Cody, the Ministers Pacific Region representative and Chris Sporer (sp?), the Pacific Halibut Management Association's lobbyist.
There was a lengthy Powerpoint presentation from the coalition as well as four other presenters from different aspects of the business of sport fishing. The presentation was excellent and really layed out the issue with non disputable facts, not a lot of hyperbole. I think the commercial guys showed their dismissal of a "fact" only once. After the presentations all the comments and questions were from the commercial guys except for one.

One guy who spoke was Dan Edwards who used to be an Area G troller but now is a hali guy fishing his own quota. His math skills weren't too good on how his poundage has decreased over the last few years as Canada's TAC has dwindled but he did make the point how it affected his income. What struck me was he was talking about how it could affect his family but my thoughts to his point were how does he think that is different than the guys in the sportie service sector. Are their families and jobs not as important as Dan's?

I think one of the best comments was from Donnely when he asked how many of the commercial guys fished and they alll but one put up his hand. And then Fin asked how many rec anglers fished hali and they all put up his/her hand. And then he asked how many only leased their quota. There was the one fellow I mentioned earlier, other than that no one. Fin then went on to say that from what he heard and saw he thought the two groups had more in common than he first expected. And he was likely right. After the meeting one of the commercial guys came up to one of the presenters and commented how he had made a bad lease buy in 2010 and it almost put him out of business. When he offloaded he had made 78 cents a pound, didn't cover his costs. The quota system as it stands now doesn't appear to work for anyone but the slipper skippers.

 

[fish4all]

Just a quick update on how the meeting went.
We started at about 7:15, ended by 10 or so. Approx 120 people of which about 30 were commercial halibut fisherman. One guy that didn't fish his quota, his son did. No slipper skippers. Randy Kamp was present as was Fin Donnely, the NDP Fisheries critic. Also in attendance was Dan Cody, the Ministers Pacific Region representative and Chris Sporer (sp?), the Pacific Halibut Management Association's lobbyist.
There was a lengthy Powerpoint presentation from the coalition as well as four other presenters from different aspects of the business of sport fishing. The presentation was excellent and really layed out the issue with non disputable facts, not a lot of hyperbole. I think the commercial guys showed their dismissal of a "fact" only once. After the presentations all the comments and questions were from the commercial guys except for one.

One guy who spoke was Dan Edwards who used to be an Area G troller but now is a hali guy fishing his own quota. His math skills weren't too good on how his poundage has decreased over the last few years as Canada's TAC has dwindled but he did make the point how it affected his income. What struck me was he was talking about how it could affect his family but my thoughts to his point were how does he think that is different than the guys in the sportie service sector. Are their families and jobs not as important as Dan's?

I think one of the best comments was from Donnely when he asked how many of the commercial guys fished and they alll but one put up his hand. And then Fin asked how many rec anglers fished hali and they all put up his/her hand. And then he asked how many only leased their quota. There was the one fellow I mentioned earlier, other than that no one. Fin then went on to say that from what he heard and saw he thought the two groups had more in common than he first expected. And he was likely right. After the meeting one of the commercial guys came up to one of the presenters and commented how he had made a bad lease buy in 2010 and it almost put him out of business. When he offloaded he had made 78 cents a pound, didn't cover his costs. The quota system as it stands now doesn't appear to work for anyone but the slipper skippers.

Good summery. I would add that Alcock stopped the QA periode when he saw that speaker list was pretty much all commercial fishermen.

about your comment "What struck me was he was talking about how it could affect his family but my thoughts to his point were how does he think that is different than the guys in the sportie service sector. Are their families and jobs not as important as Dan's?" I would say they are equally as important and so would dan. It is not the commercials falult that the stocks have dropped by 45% so to not spread the pain out seems very unfair.

 

[GLG]

It is not the commercials falult that the stocks have dropped by 45% so to not spread the pain out seems very unfair.

This is one of the things I don’t understand. Why has the harvestable biomass of halibut dropped by 45%. Seems to me that if this fishery has so well managed we would have the harvestable biomass steady or increasing every year. Could it be the stocks have been hammered in the past and now we are seeing the results of this mismanagement?

GLG

 

[GLG]

Got this from the IPHC website
http://www.iphc.washington.edu/faqs.html

Where have all the big fish gone?

For a simple question, this has a bit of a complicated answer. The simple answer is, they are still here. Or at least the same age fish are still here. For the past 15 years or so, halibut growth rates have been depressed to levels that haven't been seen since the 1920's. Both females and male halibut have the potential to grow rapidly until about age 10, about 2 inches per year for males and 2.5 inches for females. Thereafter, females have the potential to grow even faster, while males generally would slow down relative to female growth. Growth rates for these larger fish in the last 10 or so years are more on the order of one inch or less per year. This translates into a much smaller fish at any given age. There was a dramatic increase in halibut growth rates in the middle of this century, especially in Alaska. Sometime around 1980, growth rates started to drop, and now Alaska halibut of a given age and sex are about the same size as they were in the 1920's. For example, in the northern Gulf of Alaska, an 11-year-old female halibut weighed about 20 pounds in the 1920's, nearly 50 pounds in the 1970's, and now again about 20 pounds. The reasons for both the increase and the decrease are not yet known but may be tied to increased abundance of other species, such as arrowtooth flounder, and availability of food supply.1,2

1 Decadal changes in growth and recruitment of Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis), William G Clark, Steven R Hare, Ana M Parma, Patrick J Sullivan, Robert J Trumble. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. Ottawa: Feb 1999. Vol. 56, Iss. 2; pg. 242, 11 pgs
2 RARA 2009: Populations Assessment Document

So IPHC has known about this since 1999 (or longer) and instead of a gradual decrease to TAC they fished it hard till the numbers dropped and now we have this mess. Thanks a lot.

GLG

 

[chris73]

As far as I know, the IPHC has a "fast decrease but slow increase" management style. Means if the biomass shows some signs of weakening the quota goes quickly down but if it shows improvement the quota only slowly and gradually goes up. Sounds good to me. BTW, a temporary shrinking biomass is not always a sign of getting hammered. Biomass can vary significantly through natural processes/cycles etc. Only if it shows a consistent and long-term trend downwards you would speak of critical impact. Not the case with halibut as far as I know - at least not in Canadian waters. Alaska may look a bit different but I am not sure.

 

[Peahead]

Just a quick update on how the meeting went.
We started at about 7:15, ended by 10 or so. Approx 120 people of which about 30 were commercial halibut fisherman. One guy that didn't fish his quota, his son did. No slipper skippers. Randy Kamp was present as was Fin Donnely, the NDP Fisheries critic. Also in attendance was Dan Cody, the Ministers Pacific Region representative and Chris Sporer (sp?), the Pacific Halibut Management Association's lobbyist.
There was a lengthy Powerpoint presentation from the coalition as well as four other presenters from different aspects of the business of sport fishing. The presentation was excellent and really layed out the issue with non disputable facts, not a lot of hyperbole. I think the commercial guys showed their dismissal of a "fact" only once. After the presentations all the comments and questions were from the commercial guys except for one.

One guy who spoke was Dan Edwards who used to be an Area G troller but now is a hali guy fishing his own quota. His math skills weren't too good on how his poundage has decreased over the last few years as Canada's TAC has dwindled but he did make the point how it affected his income. What struck me was he was talking about how it could affect his family but my thoughts to his point were how does he think that is different than the guys in the sportie service sector. Are their families and jobs not as important as Dan's?

I think one of the best comments was from Donnely when he asked how many of the commercial guys fished and they alll but one put up his hand. And then Fin asked how many rec anglers fished hali and they all put up his/her hand. And then he asked how many only leased their quota. There was the one fellow I mentioned earlier, other than that no one. Fin then went on to say that from what he heard and saw he thought the two groups had more in common than he first expected. And he was likely right. After the meeting one of the commercial guys came up to one of the presenters and commented how he had made a bad lease buy in 2010 and it almost put him out of business. When he offloaded he had made 78 cents a pound, didn't cover his costs. The quota system as it stands now doesn't appear to work for anyone but the slipper skippers.

Hi Double trouble . I sent you a PM seeking your permission to pass on your description of the meeting as per above.