A handful of halibut charter operators meeting in Anchorage Wednesday tried and struggled to come up with a way to hold down halibut catches in keeping with the desires of the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council -- and worried about what next summer will bring. The Council had wanted to impose a so-called "catch share plan" on the charter fleet in 2012 to make those businesses share the burden of dealing with a declining volume of halibut in the north Pacific Ocean. 

But the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees the Council, rejected the plan, saying significant questions had been raised about the economic consequences of the scheme and its overall effectiveness.

A Halibut Management Implementation Committee, headed by Council member Ed Dersham from Anchorage, spent much of Wedensday talking about how best to implement restrictions on the sport halibut fishery. Southeast charter operators say a restriction that began in that region this year -- one fish a day no bigger than 32 inches -- is killing them. Many say that unless something is changed -- and quick -- they're going out of business. Charter operators in Southcentral Alaska have said much the same of a plan to restrict their clients to one fish per day.

Meanwhile, the International Pacific Halibut Commission, which by treaty oversees halibut management for the U.S. and Canada, says it would prefer the U.S. quit fooling around with the charter issue in Alaska and write regulations to fully manage both guided and unguided halibut anglers. The Council has been reluctant to do that because of fears of a backlash from the angling public if average Alaskans, or at least those who can afford their own ocean-going boats so they don't need charters, are hit with major restrictions.

Angry anglers might turn on the Council and demand a bigger share of the halibut catch for the recreational fishery. New figures out just this week from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game indicate guided and non-guided anglers combined accounted for only about 13 percent of the Alaska halibut kill in 2010. That's just a tad more than the approximately 10 percent dredged from the sea as a by-product of trawling only to be dumped, dead, back into the ocean.

This so-called "by-catch'' is thrown back, according to federal regulators, to discourage trawlers from catching halibut. Were they allowed to keep the fish, the argument is that some trawlers might begin targeting halibut instead of Pacific Ocean perch and Pollock, and thus end up devastating halibut stocks. As it is, the trawlers often catch large quantities of halibut.

The economic return to the state of Alaska from by-catch is zilch. The economic return from the recreational fisheries is tens of millions of dollars and so to from the longline commercial fishery that has been given most of the fish, about 75 percent. The longline fishery catches about nine times as much halibut as the charter fleet. The latter's take is about 60 percent of the total sport harvest, or about 8 percent of the combined harvest and wastage of sport and commercial fisheries.

Given the prices charter clients charge to catch such a small percentage of fish, and the money the tourists among those charter anglers leave in the state when they come to fish, at least one economic study has suggested charter halibut fisheries are one of the best marine resource deals the Alaska has going.

That study suggested the state should be backing a scheme to split the halibut catch 25-75 between the recreational fishery and various commercial fisheries if it wants to maximize the economic benefit to Alaska.

The idea has gone nowhere, however, given halibut management is largely controlled by powerful commercial fishing interests and the seeming lack of interest in the issue show by the administration of Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell.

Contact Craig Medred at craig(at)alaskadispatch.com