Cook Inlet Charters Face New Halibut Limits

Saltwater Nation: Alaska

The Alaska Charter Halibut Management Implementation Committee has asked the North Pacific Fisheries Management Council to impose new restrictions on the catch limits for halibut in Cook Inlet for next summer. The Charter Committee has proposed a new two-fish limit in an effort to head off a new International Pacific Halibut Commission directive that would limit the catch to one fish per day per angler. The Charter Committee’s proposal is to allow for anglers to continue to keep two fish, but that one of the fish can be no larger than 30 inches (about a 12 pound fish).

The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council is one of eight regional councils established by the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act in 1976 to manage fisheries in the 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone. The Council, which is dominated by commercial fishing interests, wants to shift the burden of fisheries conservation from commercial fishing to recreational fishing and is looking to impose a one fish limit for Cook Inlet charter boats. The one-fish limit has already been imposed in Southeast Alaska waters. As the Homer Tribune reports, “Glenn Merrill of the National Marine Fisheries Service says the Secretary of Commerce has approved the plan to take fish away from the sport fishery and give them to the commercial fishery, though the rules have not yet been officially published.”

The new limits would apply to charter boats only. Anglers fishing from their own boats or rented boats would not face the new restrictions.