Ukee, you really are betraying your lack of real knowledge of the issues and motivations of the WCFGA. Let me shed some light please as your comments are particularly harmful to our organization and I must set the record straight as President.
The WCFGA did not have any "emergency meeting" this year to discuss and recommend regulations changes to the SFAB Halibut Committee. The WCFGA does hold membership meetings where we do discuss these issues, and we then act upon them for the benefit of our members in much the same manner as other great organizations like the BCWF for example.
To suggest that the Association can somehow hijack the SFAB process is patently disingenuous. We did not write any letters to the SFAB to provide advice on this year's regulations. We did however write the SFAB a few years ago to provide our views because we naively thought that was the way to be involved in the process. Those letters have been posted here for all to see. We were subsequently advised that the appropriate venue for making those views known was to attend meetings and join the process, and not to write letters directly to the SFAB. So we do what any one here can do...we get involved and help where we can. We attend meetings. Not sexy, lots of work, but its the right thing to do because we can contribute and we can hear other's views and actually learn by listening to the debates.
So to address any conspiracy theorists, it is true that the WCFGA has a seat on the IPHC Conference Board....just like other organizations do. We joined to help the Canadian Delegation by adding our vote to the Canadian cause, and we showed up and voted as a team player. One of the reasons Canada did well at the IPHC is this team work and ability to make professional arguments. Together we can accomplish a lot, divided we are going no where fast. As guides we wanted to help make a difference for Canada. Some will be suspicious of our motives, and I can't change that.
We strongly encourage our members to attend their SFAC meetings and provide input into the process, which is open to all to participate - yes even lowly self absorbed guides. Yes we discuss and agree upon how we see the halibut fishery and regulations from the best interest of all recreational anglers. Our number 1 value is ensuring a full season for all anglers, which might seem at odds with tilting the regs to favour allowing us to whack a bunch of barn doors so we can market those to customers and attract more business. If we were a self absorbed Association, we certainly would lobby for no slot limit so we can go catch all the TAC and be done in July but still be able to book out trips to unsuspecting guests who had been sold on catching barn doors. That would certainly screw over a lot of resident rec anglers for sure.
However, our group strongly felt that was and is the wrong headed approach. Rather that the best approach was to think about what worked best coast wide...that included supporting things like Feb openings because we came to understand that the Victoria Area fishery for example, has some unique tides and needs early season, and the right thing to do was to ensure those folks had equal access to these wonderful opportunities, just as folks on the north island who benefit from a fall fishery.
I can confirm that we did meet in the fall of 2014 (prior to the TAC announcement) and assumed we would get a similar TAC as in 2014. After debating the options available or assumed to be available, we agreed that what was best for the coast wide fishery was status quo. However, we did feel that after the catch results were known in August and if there was truly a harvestable surplus that we recommended members support opening up to 2 possible options in September. Those being remove the upper slot entirely or if there wasn't enough TAC left then to increase the upper size to 144 cm. There you go...transparency. There is no smashing conspiracy. Those comments are simply libellous.
I should point out (because it has been slightly under-represented on here) that one of the big issues at the IPHC meetings that most are not too savvy to on here is the halibut release mortality issue. Canada was charged 42,000 pounds in 2015 towards recreational release morts. We feel that is an unfair assessment. But it will continue to be attached to Canada's TAC in years to come. That makes this a huge issue, and one where we need to take off line into another thread to get input on how to reduce release mortality. I've seen some good practices and also bad ones. We need to start addressing this to develop best practices so we can help reduce the catch mortality being charged to our TAC going forward.
Cheers
