Early Halibut Opening

Some fishy numbers from certain areas look high…very high…how do they calcualate some of these? 2019 had better limits two fish posesion of 126 and 90 and used around 800000..how’s this yrs numbers make sence
It's called "Guesstimation "
 
The SFAB created a set of guiding principles for the Halibut WG to follow when selecting options - one is to have the longest season possible. The lower our TAC goes, there will come a point where we eventually would have to decide which months in the season are most important to ensure we have full fishery opportunities taking place within those months.

Either end of the season (early and late) then become where you would likely trim. Don't think we are there yet.

IMO last season was anomalous, and how fast we used TAC was driven by factors such as good weather, great salmon fishing, and allowing retention of 2 smaller fish in one day. The biomass is changing rapidly, and will be dominated by smaller fish. So if you want to slow down how fast we use TAC in that situation, lower the small size from 90 cm. Another big factor is to stick with 1 daily until we are in mid-August where there is data available up to the end of June so we have a better sense of how we track.
Am I reading it right that the average hali taken coast wide in the rec fishery was around 14lbs?
 
And you know that because you were part of making the decision? I was, and that ain't it.
I wasnt but doesnt take a genius to figure out that our area takes a fart in a dust storm along with the rest of the coast in april to june, THEN the lodges open big time one only has to look at the numbers that are taken north of us to see whats going on prove me wrong. if this was in such a predicament then answer me this WHY in late june it was bumped up to 2 it should have stayed at 1 per. the numbers to me just dont add up...especially when we down here dont fish mush for halibut in aug as we only have 1 month to really target spring so we take full advantge of that. YOU have the luxury to keep spring when we cant, thats why we go for halibut early is its the only we CAN fish for

Im not knocking on you Pat or Derek as I know you guys do a great Job and work very hard .. and Im glad you guys do, I just dont have the time or energy anymore im old and stood up for us many years ago I just dont have the patience.
Again Thanks for all you guys do
 
Some fishy numbers from certain areas look high…very high…how do they calcualate some of these? 2019 had better limits two fish posesion of 126 and 90 and used around 800000..how’s this yrs numbers make sence

Don’t forget 2019-2020 catches we’re impacted by Covid.
 
I wasnt but doesnt take a genius to figure out that our area takes a fart in a dust storm along with the rest of the coast in april to june, THEN the lodges open big time one only has to look at the numbers that are taken north of us to see whats going on prove me wrong. if this was in such a predicament then answer me this WHY in late june it was bumped up to 2 it should have stayed at 1 per. the numbers to me just dont add up...especially when we down here dont fish mush for halibut in aug as we only have 1 month to really target spring so we take full advantge of that. YOU have the luxury to keep spring when we cant, thats why we go for halibut early is its the only we CAN fish for

Im not knocking on you Pat or Derek as I know you guys do a great Job and work very hard .. and Im glad you guys do, I just dont have the time or energy anymore im old and stood up for us many years ago I just dont have the patience.
Again Thanks for all you guys do
It’s not “the lodges”. The entire coast of B.C makes their season June - Sept. Small owner operator businesses, mom and pop recreationally fishing. You name it.

It’s impossible to create regs that make everyone happy given our current quota. Fingers crossed the biomass swings up again and relaxes our current situation.
 
Well, yes it ain't rocket surgery for sure, but it does involve some basic math. I did some work to complete an analysis of the 2023 iREC data and converted the catches within all the cm length ranges from 60cm to 133. The data clearly demonstrates that smaller fish are dominating the catch. The biomass is shifting and we are seeing older age class fish (the large ones) aging out of the fishery being replaced by smaller ones. The IPHC science folks told us this year at IPHC that the 2012 cohort of spawners is now the largest contributor to catch, and they have serious concerns there isn't yet strong evidence of other age classes performing well entering the fishery to even replace the 2012 fish as they eventually age out. There are some signals in the FISS data (set-line survey) and trawl data that indicate some younger fish but not enough data to establish that yet. Thus the decision at IPHC to take another coast-wide reduction given concerns there could be a future recruitment problem and we are already looking at a 30 year low in biomass coast wide.

So, here's a quick summary table I built to help me see if there are patterns in the Canadian recreational fishery - CAUTION - this is iREC data for 2023 and does not contain Creel or Lodge data. You can see that when we implemented the 2 small fish per day, given majority of catch is in 70 - 90cm size, that likely caused us some trouble burning through TAC very quickly. At the time the decision was taken to implement the 2/day, we were tracking well below expected TAC for the early season. Remember the data we get to use is always at least 1 month late as it takes time for DFO to compile all the creel data to produce estimates...so making a decision in early August or July we are dealing with data only to end of May or June. If conditions on the grounds shifts in July, that trend data isn't available. We would have to wait until mid to late August to make a decision and have the July data.

Summary in 10cm segments - 2023 iREC only - not Creel and Lodge Data



Segment in 10cm groupingsTotal Number in SampleTotal Pounds in SegmentPercent of Segment
60 – 70 cm2,38217,691.40 lbs18.7%
71 – 80 cm4,52551,952.6035.4
81 – 90 cm3,56259,351.4027.9
91 – 100 cm81620,547.406.4
101 – 110 cm63321,293.805.0
111 – 120 cm49021,908.103.8
121-130 cm35619,844.602.8
131 – 133 cm2135.00.02
12,766195,032.90
 
I wasnt but doesnt take a genius to figure out that our area takes a fart in a dust storm along with the rest of the coast in april to june, THEN the lodges open big time one only has to look at the numbers that are taken north of us to see whats going on prove me wrong. if this was in such a predicament then answer me this WHY in late june it was bumped up to 2 it should have stayed at 1 per. the numbers to me just dont add up...especially when we down here dont fish mush for halibut in aug as we only have 1 month to really target spring so we take full advantge of that. YOU have the luxury to keep spring when we cant, thats why we go for halibut early is its the only we CAN fish for

Im not knocking on you Pat or Derek as I know you guys do a great Job and work very hard .. and Im glad you guys do, I just dont have the time or energy anymore im old and stood up for us many years ago I just dont have the patience.
Again Thanks for all you guys do
July 8 was the change to allowing retention of 2 unders. At that time the data indicated we were tracking well below the expected catch based on our estimate projections. If we wait until we have July data (June - Aug are largest effort and catch), it is hard to optimize our use of available TAC as the catch and effort really drop off in September, and even more Oct - Dec. We have ended up with underages in TAC for most year's, so the concern was given the trend was to finish 2023 with a large underage, the decision was made to use one of the regulation tools we have which is to allow daily possession of the unders to increase from 1 to 2. Easy to be an arm chair QB after all the data is available - we should have done this or that is pretty easy then.
 
1 over 70cm possession


Don’t hate the player gate the game lol
 
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More people fishing, less fish! Something has to give.
 
More people fishing, less fish! Something has to give.

I don't think there is more people fishing, it's just a change in effort.

why i don't think area closures are necessary the right way to manage the rec fishery. how much effort is then just switching to other areas? other species?
 
JWS laughs but it’s a legit question, meaning, does it get announced this evening ? 12.01am tonight ? Or tomorrow morning?
 
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