From the SFI:
August 23, 2012
Halibut 2012
The Labour Day long weekend is nearly upon us, and unfortunately we must report that DFO will soon be announcing the closure of the recreational halibut fishery in BC. After some discussion, DFO has concluded that recreational anglers will have caught their 15% allocation effective September 9th, 2012. While we can't disagree with their catch projections, and are disappointed that the management measure utilized to slow harvest, the one normal size one under 83cm experiment, was not nearly successful as hoped, we can only interpret the closure as further evidence of the failure of the allocation model.
Sadly, the decision will have a significant impact on hundreds of charter boat operators in coastal communities who will sacrifice significant economic opportunities for a modest catch reduction.
Last year's closure announcement came days before the long weekend and resulted in a spike in catch effort that created an unanticipated catch overage for the recreational sector. This was to be expected when one considers that anglers legitimately wanted to get one last chance at fishing before the season was closed. Unfortunately DFO seems poised to repeat this mistake.
We will undoubtedly spend much of the winter working to find new approaches to dealing with halibut allocation.
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Topic: Halibut Closing September 9th (Read 1422 times)