Ha. This wouldn't be the same trawl fishery that has a 14 million pound/per year halibut bycatch, would it?

For those who aren't familiar with trawl bycatch, the fish are crushed in the nets and come up dead. Pollock fishermen aren't allowed to keep any other fish species, so along with throwing back 100,000 dead kings each year, they also throw back 14 million pounds of halibut.

For perspective, the total halibut harvest in Alaska is about 100 million lbs/yr. Of that, approx. 10 million lbs is harvested by sport and charter fishermen. This means that more halibut is wasted per year (14%) than is harvested by sport fishermen (10%).

Commercial fishermen are currently pressuring NOAA and NMFS to reduce the sport/charter halibut take in AK, saying sport fishermen are taking more than their 10% share.

The nasty little secret of halibut discarded by trawl fishermen is that the bulk of fish caught are juveniles of 8-12 inches. Try to imagine how many individual 8-12 inch fish it would take to make 14 million lbs...............Horrible if you think of it.

I own a charterboat, so if the allowable limit for sport/charter fishermen is reduced, then I suffer financially. Because of this, I consider myself biased on this issue. The numbers, however, are quite accurate. It is an allocation battle which Alaskan charters and the fishermen who fish aboard them are faced with. The NMFS is made up largely of commercial fishing interests, so despite the injustice of a 90/10 allocation between sport and commercials, sport fishermen will continue to be cut back. These cutbacks occur despite a fish and game reported 75% increase in halibut abundance in my area(3A). 3A includes Homer, Ninilchik, Anchor Point, Seward, and Kodiak. Commercial fishermen are pushing for the daily halibut limit to be reduced to 1 fish per day in 3A (down from the historical 2 fish per day). Our lovely governor even said, "She didn't think a 1 halibut per day would affect the charter industry." This was a few months before she publicly stated that she didn't think the clean water initiative was necessary to protect Bristol Bay and it's trout and salmon runs.


Sorry. Rant.

-david