Reduced Halibut Fishery for 2013
Tuesday, March 26, 2013 @ 3:56 AM
Prince Rupert- Fishing guides along the west coast of BC say they expect to further suffer in light of the Halibut regulations that have been announced for 2013 in BC’s west coast.
Under the new regulations fishermen will be allowed to catch six Halibut a year. A new tag system will be employed which allows the sports fishermen to catch one Halibut of up to approximately 60lbs, (126 centimetres ) and a have in their possession a second Halibut of 30 lbs ( 83 centimetres ) or less.
Under the new regulations DFO says the process of guides gifting a halibut to their customers will be eliminated and the new tagging system will prevent that process from occurring.
The new quotas give the recreational fisheries 15% of the allowable catch in 2013, the commercial fishery has 85%.
The limit for Ling Cod is one, two in possession for 2013, with a limit of ten per year. There is no size limit.
Owen Bird, the Executive Director of the Sports Fishing Institute of BC says his organization has joined the DFO in opposing the legal challenge by the Commercial Halibut Fishery which is pressing to have the quota for recreational fishing reduced to 12% of the total catch.
Comments
Most halibut fishers are OK with the 6 per year. What they want is to be able to catch their 6 on one weekend if they want rather than be forced to go out 3 weekends to fish. Y’know family time and other equally important stuff to do plays a big role in our lives.
Do the early Asian immigrants have the follow the same rules?
Yeah I think everyone has to follow the same rules…immigrant or not,enforcement is the key issue.
I think the 85/15 formula should be 80/20 and the per day limit changed to a per year limit based on tags and no restriction about the time it takes to catch your 6 limit.
So I wonder if they are going to pass on the “reduced halibut” to the consumer with lower prices.
MORONS we catch 1 hali over 126 cm & than go for 1 under for our limit BUT catch & release 10 more before catching 1 under 83 cm for our limit. What is the mortality rate after pulling them up from 200 ft. plus & releaseing them? STUPID STUPID
I don’t fish. I’ll let Joeys Only look after those details.
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