HALIBUT BYCATCH, the end result of big money commercial halibut fishing, is having an impact on flatfish stocks.
This is reflected in lower recruitment, the number of fish surviving to enter the fishery or to some life history stage such as settlement or maturity, in halibut’s largest spawning grounds in the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
One such area, the Bering Sea Shelf, is prime breeding and nursery territory for youthful halibut.
The International Pacific Halibut Commission closed off much of this flat, sandy stretch to protect these fish. A great idea as tagging records show that when these halibut mature, they travel along the Pacific Rim from Alaska to California.
But the commission doesn’t have enforcement powers over the commercial trawl fishery, especially those targeting groundfish such as sole or flounder, so juvenile halibut are caught up when nets scoop those sandy bottoms.
Lots of halibut. More halibut than Area 2A (Washington, Oregon and California) receive in quota in recent seasons.
Sequim anglers Dave Croonquist and John Beath attended last week’s commission meeting and learned how much halibut is taken and wasted.
The bottom trawl fisheries take, kill and dump as bycatch over 850 tons of juvenile halibut every year in the nursery area,” Croonquist said. “At a 5-pound average, that is 374,000 sub-legal halibut. The total bycatch of halibut by all means in 2017 was 2,700 tons or almost 1.2 million halibut.”
Hard to exclude juveniles
Croonquist said Area 2A’s trawl fleet has greatly decreased the incidental take of small halibut by using excluder devices, but the halibut in our waters are larger than those found in the nursery areas of the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska.
“Trying to find a way to decrease the bycatch of halibut in Alaskan waters is an ongoing issue that isn’t easily resolved,” Croonquist said. “Excluder devices can work, but when halibut to be excluded are in the same size ratio as the target species (Petrale sole for example), the halibut can be removed to some extent, but then the trawl time increases with subsequent mortality of fish not excluded.”
More time spent picking through the catch is less time trawling, which likely leads to a smaller catch and smaller paychecks for fishers, and higher prices for consumers.
This is big appetites and big business working together.
Beath addressed this conundrum on his blog at tinyurl.com/PDN-HalibutNursery
“The only way this massacre can stop is to convince the National Marine Fisheries Service to acknowledge this closed area and stop trawling in this closed area,” he wrote. “But, as you may or may not know, the National Marine Fisheries Service is an office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration within the Department of Commerce. Department of Commerce equals big business. Maybe when the halibut fishery declines to a point of collapse NMFS might come to their senses and do what’s right for the halibut fishery and conservation.”
Anglers meet in PT
Quilcene’s Ward Norden, a staple of this outdoors column, a former fisheries biologist and owner of Snapper Tackle Co., will speak to the next the East Jefferson Chapter of Puget Sound Anglers on Tuesday, Feb. 13.
The meeting will be held in the Port of Port Townsend Commissioners office, 333 Benedict Street.
A meet-and-greet will begin at 6:30 p.m.
The public is invited to attend.
A raffle for fishing tackle will be held, refreshments will be served.
Kid’s Fishing Fundraiser
The annual fundraising dinner for Sequim Kids Fishing Day will be hosted by the North Olympic Peninsula Chapter of Puget Sound Anglers on Saturday, Feb. 17.
The event will be held at SunLand Golf and Country Club, with doors opening at 4:30 p.m. for a silent auction, dinner at 5:30 p.m. and the main event, a live auction featuring auctioneer John Beath at 7 p.m.
The buffet dinner features spaghetti with red meat sauce or alfredo clam sauce, Caesar salad, garlic bread and dessert.
If you want to go salt or freshwater fishing for salmon, steelhead, rockfish or ling cod, crabbing, shrimping or digging geoducks there is a trip for you.
Tickets are $20 and are limited to 180.
Email sherryandangus@olypen.com or call Sherry Anderson at 360-681-4768.
The Sequim Kids Fishing Day will be held at Carrie Blake Park on Saturday, May 19.
Derby tickets on sale
Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby tickets are on sale now at area merchants and online at www.gardinersalmonderby.org.
Set Friday through Sunday, March 9-11, the derby offers a $10,000 first prize, $2,000 for second and $1,000 for third. A host of other cash prizes, fishing gear and gas cards also are up for grabs.
Tickets are available for $40 at the following North Olympic Peninsula outlets: Brian’s Sporting Goods, Sequim; Four Corners Store, Port Townsend; Fish’n Hole, Port Townsend; Fishing Supplies & Gear, Discovery Bay; Longhouse Market & Deli, Blyn; Olympic Equipment Rentals, Port Hadlock; Quimper Mercantile, Port Townsend; Swain’s, Port Angeles; West Marine, Port Townsend; Wild Birds, Unlimited, Gardiner.
Online tickets are $42.50 with service fees factored in. Tickets are good for all three days.
This winter blackmouth classic is part of the Northwest Marine Trade Association Northwest Salmon Derby Series and a grand prize boat will again be awarded to a lucky winner.
Ticket holders for the Olympic Peninsula Salmon Derby are automatically entered into the boat drawing which will be held in the fall.
