A note on the subject matter here- I was in Alaska about 12 years ago and we chartered two boats to halibut fish. It was some of the coolest fishing I’ve ever done. How this hits home for us is that this catch share plan was supposed to be part of the foundation for what “they” want to do with red snapper in the gulf and red snapper (and probably black sea bass, etc.) here…
From the National Association of Charterboat Operators (NACO)
All,
Below you will find a message from me to all NACO members sent this past Friday regarding the long time proposed AK Guided Sport fish Catch Share program. The date the decision was made was Thurs 9-28. This is a very important action as you should all be aware. Over the last couple of years there has been much talk about this proposed plan and the folks at the Environmental Defense Fund and their few supporters in the Gulf have told Gulf fishermen how this plan was going to set the stage to lease commercial quota of Halibut to recreational charter boats for recreational use. The EDF folks have told everyone this was going to set the precedent for the sector separation and the use of com red snapper IFQs in the charter fleet for the Gulf and they all told everyone how the charter fleet in AK was behind the proposed plan there. As you can see and better understand what we told you, the charter boat owners, operators, supporting businesses, and communities in AK did not support the guided sport fish proposal and have fought it the whole time.
Because they joined together and spoke as one voice to the NMFS and their legislators, they have defeated the hard push by the NMFS to ram this plan on them supported by some of the enviros such as EDF. Remember, the sector separation meeting held in Tampa last year and the North Pacific Council representative that the folks from EDF brought down? If you were there and after the meeting you heard how she told those in attendance about the plan and the support it had. We told you then that presen