John Beath and I are attending the International Pacific Halibut Commission annual meeting in Portland this week. Final numbers on the 2018 quotas will be coming out tomorrow. Lots of interesting discussions and presentations about the halibut fishery and industry. Not many sport fishing representatives in attendance. Two from WA, two from CA, and one from OR.

We think you'll find the information in John's link of interest. Millions of young halibut have been killed over the past years by the trawl fleet. There is a closed area that the IPHC designated as a halibut nursery and there is no halibut fishery in the area. There are, however, extensive trawl operations. Out-migration of small halibut from the nursery area are critical to the halibut fishery into SE Alaska, Canada, and our local waters.

There is a need to control by-catch/wastage on small halibut.

https://halibutchronicles.com/2018/01/25/why-are-halibut-stocks-declining/

"In 2017 the trawl fleet killed, as by-catch, 867 metric tons of halibut! That’s 1.9 million pounds of halibut — a number larger than Area 2A’s halibut quota. These juvenile halibut average four to six pounds. Using the high number of six, that’s a total of 316,667 small halibut."


OUCH!

Keep in mind that the by-catch numbers in John's link are for the closed area only.

The total by-catch mortality by vessels fishing for other than halibut totaled 2,719 metric tons (6,081,800 lbs) in 2017. A majority of those fish are in the 6# range - that's a million fish removed from the recruitment needs to fill future spawn needs.

Holy sh!t!

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I see James W Balsiger is still the NOAA Regional Adminisrator Alaska Region. Is he still married to the lobbyist for the trawlers association?

WTF. Shut the trawlers down before it's destroyed!

I'd much rather eat my fillet-o-fish, personally. Keep draggin!

One word: Criminal!