Under this program, only one of Smith's boats has been granted a permit. The second boat failed to meet minimum participation standards during the program's qualifying years of 2004-2005. Full story

Skippers at Sea Over a License to Fish
Federal Officials Curb Permits to Alaska's Chartered Halibut Fleet to Stop Overfishing, but Some Boat Operators Fear Ruin

 

Federal Government Wages War On American Dream In Alaska And Beyond
By Cal Kellogg

Back in January I wrote an article outlining how the Federal Government has instituted arbitrary and highly restrictive rules governing charter boat fishing for halibut in southern Alaska, while Alaska’s state government has stood idly by as jobs, businesses and tourism revenue are in peril.
In that article I explained how the Feds have sided with commercial fishing interested and have imposed a complicated set of rules that will exclude 40% of the charter boats currently operating in southern Alaska from fishing, by not issuing them permits.
As anglers residing here in California are well aware the Federal Government in the form of NOAA Fisheries has a long and depressing record of implementing restrictions on anglers with little evidence that the restrictions are even necessary. Basically they cite “the best available science”, generally science that would receive a failing mark in any entry level science or social science classroom in any college in the country, and then make sweeping regulations that both strip away the rights of sport anglers and have broad economic consequences for businesses and communities that rely on sportfishing dollars for survival.
If you are a California saltwater angler think about the MLPAs and depth restrictions that have been shoved down our throats along with the prohibition on harvesting canary rockfish, which are larger and more plentiful every year and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the federal level incompetence that I’m talking about…’nuff said.
There have been some developments in the Alaskan situation that I’ll address in a bit, but first I need to touch on how Jane Lubchenco, NOAA’s Administrator is pushing for the privatization of public trust fisheries under a program known as “catch shares”.
Now I’m not going to use a lot of complicated double talk to explain how catch shares work. I’ll use layman’s terms because I don’t want to be confused with a politician.
Certainly this is just my opinion, but when I start hearing a lot of complicated double talk coming out of government agencies or politicians I just figure it is a smoke screen that they use to attempt to cover up the fact that they are A.) Stealing from us B.) Taking away our rights or C.) Both of the above.
President Obama’s 2012 budget defines Catch Shares as “a general term for several fishery management strategies that allocate a specific portion of the total allowable fishery catch to individuals, cooperatives, communities, or other entities."
On the surface it sounds like Catch Shares would institute a system of fairness in allocating fish to everyone, but that isn’t the case. It would create an exclusionary system where the large commercial fishing corporations would get the lions share of the catch, leaving small commercial operators, charter skippers and recreational anglers to fight for the leftovers, if there turned out to be any leftovers once the privileged few harvested their bloated quotas.
Ultimately if the administration’s Catch Shares program is implemented many commercial anglers and sportfishing skippers will ultimately be pushed out. Catch Shares will strip away American jobs, signal the death of countless small businesses and in the end will lead to outsourcing sea food harvest to foreign nations that have no regard for conservation or food safety…Hence the title for this article.
Catch Shares represent the worst form of social engineering. If you’d like an in-depth overview of the situation and learn what you can do to help derail the program visit the Saving Seafood website at www.savingseafood.org and look up the press release titled “Recreational Fishing Alliance Says Environmental Defense Is On The Offensive”.
Now let’s get back to the Alaskan situation. Charter skippers in Alaska continue to be bullied by both commercial fishing interests and the Federal Government. Despite the fact that charter operators and sport anglers only take less than 20% of the total catch, commercial anglers have asserted that this is too much and the Feds largely agree with them.
Both commercial anglers and the Feds assert that charter fishing pressure is on the rise, yet between ’07 and ’09 sportfishing pressure dropped and the reported catch declined by 24%. Despite this reduced pressure and catch Rachel Baker of National Marine Fisheries Service is quoted as saying, “…it doesn’t seem like there is continued growth (among charter operators), but we’re still going ahead with the program.”
True to form the Feds are punishing charter skippers and sport anglers despite the fact that the data just doesn’t add up.
Alaskan charter skippers have asserted that the new regulations restricting the sport halibut harvest will have far reaching economic implications to the state of Alaska as a whole that the Feds have failed to consider. Commercial fishing creates jobs there is no doubt but the economic influence of sport anglers is very broad going far beyond the dollars they spend directly on fishing. Sport anglers purchase airline tickets, rent cars, frequent restaurants and taverns, book hotel rooms and buy mementos of their visit.
On January 14, NOAA reacted by calling for a survey of limited scope pertaining to the economic impact of sportfishing. Yet I found the wording in the press release to be troubling. It stated, “...all data will be handled confidentially. Each individual survey will be handled only by the researchers and destroyed upon completion of the study. Only summary survey results will be reported to the public…”.
Okay you want the people you are trying to force out of business to take your word for the results of a confidential survey in which the data will be destroyed rather than released for public scrutiny? Give me a break!
Julie Speegle was the government mouthpiece, I mean NOAA representative, listed as a contact at the top of the press release. I called her and she was out of the office and I never got a call back. Her office number is (907) 586-7032 and her cell phone number is (907) 321-7032. Perhaps she could explain the strengths and weaknesses of NOAA’s seemingly flawed economic impact survey to a few hundred Fish Sniffer readers.
As for the Alaskan Charter skippers, they are still seeking contributions to their legal defense fund and they have a petition up and running on their website where you can voice your support in the fight to save sportfishing for Alaskan halibut. Please visit their website and lend a hand www.charteroperatorsofalaska.org.
Cal Kellogg

Family Fun
August 2010
We arrived in Anchorage on July 18th at noon, made the 160 mile drive to our vacation home in Clam Gulch, dropped off our baggage and groceries and were on the river by 6:PM. I hadn't planned on fishing the first evening but the kids were determined to have bent rods plus it was my 49th B-day. What better gift could a dad have than spending the evening hooking salmon with his kids?

On this trip were my son Jake 17, his two close friends Brandon and Brian and my 15 year old son Tyler. Joining us were Tom Fueer, Casa Grande High School teacher (of all four kids) who started the incredible hatchery program at the school, my sister Beth and brother  Pete and my wife's brother Len and his family from the east coast.

On his second cast Tyler hooked the first sockeye of the trip and by 9:PM were were filleting limits. Returning home for dinner we had fresh BBQ sockeye fillets instead of the planned chicken.

The sockeye fishing was fast and furious over the next two weeks. The Alaska DFG increased the sport limit from 3 to 6 fish on the 5th day of our stay and the fish literally started to "pile up". By the beginning of our second week we had filled enough fish boxes to feed our families for the coming year and went to catch and release. (though the boys always kept a fish or two so they would have an excuse to flirt with the girls at Custom Processors)

We worked a number of areas for sockeye from the public access areas on the lower Kenai to a couple of friends backyards who are blessed to have riverfront property, to hike in spots on the upper river around Jim's Landing. It wasn't a manner of if we were going to catch fish, it was how many do you want to hook.

We did a few day hikes to check out the upper Russian river around the falls and while the sockeye fishing on the Russian was slow the crowds were light, the rainbow action incredible along with a few opportunties to watch the bears feed.

With the high flows the king action was tough so we opted to concentrate on sockeyes and leave the king fishing to the pros. Val Early from Early fishing reported some huge fish this past week with kings to 60 pounds though most kings were smaller fish this season. 

The razor clamming was good with big crowds turning out to take advantage of the -5 foot tides and easy limits of 60 clams per angler were the rule.  The clams were smaller this year but the biomass along the Ninilchik beaches is high and futures years should be incredible.

We got in just one day of halibut fishing with Steve Smith with easy limits of halibut running from 30 to 70 pounds. Two weeks go by in a hurry when you are having this much fun and we are already looking forward to next July!

Mike

We are looking ahead to another fun packed summer so come on up and join in on the action. If you have any questions regarding our USAFishing's Kenai Peninsula CABIN or the fishing or the Kenai area in general please give us a call at 707 762-9776. We will be more than happy to assist you.

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