Two of the proposals are for a shorter season, but for different reasons. Terry Henshaw, with the Annieville Halibut Association in Delta, B.C., states that his organization stands by its mandate created a few years ago for a season opening April 1 and closing Nov. 15 to “allow a more thorough dispersal of stocks after winter spawning.”
Emilie Sperl, fleet manager for Norquest Seafoods in Petersburg, proposes a season start date of March 15. She states that “the date keeps moving up, but it is a burden on processors to open two to three weeks earlier to support a low volume of deliveries.”
The 2005 season opened Feb. 28.
Bill Connor of Petersburg proposes allowing the delivery of live halibut. He states that the beneficiaries would be fishermen, restaurant owners, fish markets and consumers. He says fish would be fresher, have a longer shelf life and be a higher quality product.
Greg Elwood, owner-operator of the F/V Western Freedom, proposes allowing the skipper of boats performing Area 4 IPHC surveys to use discretion in hauling or setting gear when encountering whales. He states that whale predation is much worse in areas where there are high halibut concentrations, and the catch per unit of effort (CPUE) data collected is used to set quotas for the year. According to his proposal, “the IPHC may say that to depart from data collection protocol would make station results less accurate.” However, he says his objective is to avoid the loss of data from highly productive stations.
Also, Elwood points out that predation of fish from longlines is a learned behavior in whales, and Elwood points out that by not using well-known avoidance procedures, future predation is actually encouraged.
Theo Grutter of Sitka wants the IPHC to require longliners to record bycatch of spiny dogfish, a small shark commonly caught while halibut fishing, for one year. He states that there is strong interest among halibut fishermen to sell dogfish bycatch, but little information is available about their abundance, which is of concern to buyers. Requiring fishermen to log their dogfish bycatch for one year would provide data for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and National Marine Fisheries Service, which are responsible for regulating the catch. Fishermen are currently allowed to keep a bycatch of 20 percent of their halibut poundage.
Four of the proposals are requests that the IPHC develop a system that would allow proxy sport fishing for persons who are disabled, elderly or low income. Two of the people tendering the proposals are from Anchorage, one from Eagle River and one from Soldotna.
Eddie Thomas, a disabled veteran from Anchorage, invoked the Americans with Disabilities Act, stating that “…it is unfair to disabled persons and possibly violates the ADA. I am physically unable to fish for halibut. I don’t feel there are that many disabled persons who would use it to affect the halibut population.”
Robert Wiseman of Soldotna said that he takes three halibut charters per year on average to fill his freezer. He proposes being able to catch proxy fish at the same time, and paying for the proxy’s processing and freezing along with his own.
The IPHC annual meeting began Tuesday and runs through Friday.
Cristy Fry began her commercial fishing career gillnetting salmon in upper Cook Inlet in 1970 aboard the F/V Poopsie Doodle at age 9. Since then she has fished for halibut; black and gray cod; pollock; Atka mackerel; sole; shrimp; king, tanner, and Dungeness crab; herring and, of course, salmon. She also designs and builds gear for the industry.
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