Monday, August 15, 2011

Alaska Legislature schedules a halibut hearing

The House Special Committee on Fisheries is scheduled to meet at 1 p.m. Sept. 1 in Anchorage for an "overview hearing on Pacific halibut management."

Presumably, the hearing will focus heavily on the catch sharing plan the federal government is considering to allocate halibut between the commercial and charter boat sectors.

State Rep. Steve Thompson, R-Fairbanks, chairs the committee. Other members are listed here.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about getting to the more important issues of unreported by-catch?

Recreational and sport harvest is negligible compared to the unreported by-catch that is occurring in both the long-line and trawl fleet. The corruption is documented and reported. UFA will probably be there to repute those claims though. Corrupt bastards.

Anonymous said...

Negligible? Hardly. AK sport harvest is upwards of 9 million pounds, which is about equal to the bycatch. I'd hardl call that negligible. How bout the sport guys go after those pollock and cod trawl guys? They're stayign very quiet thru all this - I wonder why?

Anonymous said...

Pitting user groups keeps the controversy going and going and going.

Yes, lets focus on trawler ByCatch especially the salmon species.

Anonymous said...

^Anonymous....95% of trawl bycatch is caught while bottom fishing, meaning Halibut. This is directly responsible for stock decline.

Don't believe me though. I'm just some anonymous dude, and I'll admit I don't have any PhD's(player hater degrees). Just a two bloody cod knife I use to shank halibut out the shit shoot as they come across the conveyor.

Anonymous said...

Did you hear the Alaska Charter Association guys on KBBI radio in Homer saying, "there could be unpleasant consequences" if Alaskans attempt to sportfish for halibut without using a charter? Check it out - August 24th's Coffee Table. The industrial halibut charter business is starting to show its true colors. ALL the sport caught halibut should be theirs.

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. Anybody from the Governor's office going to be there, or is this just another media spot to beat up on the fed managers after the decision has been made.

The reason for the Governor's office should be held accountable is because the feds just do what the Council directs them to do, and, the Governor appoints the majority of the voting seats on the Council.

What I have seen all year is people attacking the feds for the feds upholding thier duty to follow Parnell's recomendation (through Cora Campbell of course). What do you think the odds are that the legislature takes Parnell to task versus yell about federal overreach in an attempt to drum up votes?