Loved this TIC response from the Alaska board...

Come on, you guys are not seeing both sides of the argument....

1) Commercial fishing is high regulated here in Alaska

2) Trawlers were catching and wasting those halibut before the "commercial charter" fleet started stealing halibut from the ocean for the general public to catch and eat.

3) Nothing goes to waste in the ocean, the 15 millions pounds of juvenile halibut thrown back in dead, is really just food for the rest of the halibut to grow faster

4) The State and Federal government is making sure that all the fish are being allocated to the highest and best use....so don't worry about those fish being thrown back in dead...Cod are just more important...

5) It was just one bad tow, they don't usually catch that many.....

6) The checks in the mail.....

What should happen is that the trawlers should have to keep every single halibut they catch, record their harvest and sell the fish and give the money back to the IFQ shareholders for the fish they accidentally caught while pursuing high value fish like cod(.30 cents a pound) or Turbot ( .20 cents a pound). If you compare the burden us illegal commercial charter operators have to go through to document every single fish our recreational fishing clients catch, to what is going on in that video, it should make you a little concerned...
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!