Anchorage Daily News
April 10, 2008

Halibut charters may lease commercial quotas

Associated Press

JUNEAU -- The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is trying a new way to fix allocation disputes between the charter and commercial halibut fleets.

The council will allow the charter fleet to lease halibut quota shares from commercial fishermen -- an idea that is not being eagerly embraced by some in the charter fleet.

"We want to be allocated more fish, and we see the leasing option as an excuse to allocate us less fish," said Rick Bierman, who runs the charter business Whales' Eye Lodge on Shelter Island.

Charter boat operators are wary of relying on commercial fishermen, who would have to choose to lease their quotas to charters, he said. When prices are good, there might be no quota to lease because fishermen would use it themselves, Bierman said.

But commercial fishermen argue that the charters shouldn't be getting fish for free that they have to pay for.

"From the commercial side, we think it's a really good thing, because (charter boats) are obviously going over their allocation," said Kathy Hansen, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Fishermen's Alliance.

Under the plan, the council would impose gradually stricter regulations on charter operators if they exceeded their limits.

The Department of Fish and Game says charter boats have exceeded soft guideline harvest limits for the last several years.

Tiered restrictions on charter boats would only be triggered if they exceeded their allocations. Less severely, charter boat employees could be forbidden from taking fish; more severely, clients could be limited to a one-fish bag limit.

After years of a two-fish bag limit, charter boats were restricted to a smaller-size second fish last year. Charter captains have said that any reduction in the two-fish bag limit would severely hurt their business, because clients come up expecting two fish.