Halibut Opening and politics of it.
- Thread starter trophywife
- Start date
Newf
Crew Member
I guess it depends on who you talk to. I fish out of Pedder pretty regularly and chat with lots of local fishers,,,not guides,,just folks like me with their own boats who drag friends and family along and I've yet to talk to anyone who wants a shorter season in our area. Are their folks that wish for a bigger max size,, absolutely, but in saying that, only one in a few dozen that I've spoken to said they had an oversized fish and he lost it on the way up so it's always the big one that got away. I also spoke to the creel guy yesterday and asked about the size of fish people are bringing in and he said the majority are in the 80-90 cm range. He did say that one guide had one 102 on the nose and another guide reported one in the high 90's but the rest of his clients were 80-90cm. He didn't mention that there were lots of overs being reported. We also landed one last week 101cm but my "uneducated guess" is that for this part of the coast the vast majority of fish being caught are under the new size limits, no if, ands or buts. We hear a story or two where someone reported having to release an over the limit fish and all of a sudden everyone is having to release "overs". First and second hand discussions with fishers does not support it.
One other comment. Looking at the data reported in the table in this thread showing the average weight for the different areas, it does not support the idea that they are many BIG fish being caught. (Some, sure there are) I may not be good with Math and have this totally wrong and open to being corrected but take an area where the average weight was 12-13lbs. (It was 12.6 lbs coast wide) Do you realize how many much smaller fish would have to be caught and kept if only 20-30% of the total catch were BIG fish as so many claim to be catching. Either some are not being totally truthful or the reported data is out to lunch. Both can't be true.
Newf
Crew Member
Been reading online trying to learn more about halibut in general. Here are a few things that were interesting that I did not know. I'm sure that the more seasoned sports fishers are aware of this, just thought it might be of some interest to others.
Mostly copy and paste information:
Barn door" halibut are typically females. Females grow much larger than males, which rarely reach a length of 3 feet. (I knew Males were smaller but not to this extent)
Mother halibut get more prolific as they get bigger. A 50-pound female produces about 500,000 eggs, and more eggs mean more future halibut to catch! A 250-pound female can produce 4 million eggs!
Halibut have been getting smaller for their age since the 1970s. By the 2000s, an average 12-year-old halibut weighed half as much as one in the 1980s. The reasons for the decrease in size are unknown, but competition for food, climate effects, and fishing effects are possible causes.
Commercial fishery has a minimum size of 32" (head on). (Not sure if this applies to US only or Canada as well.)(May be different for different areas)
Mostly copy and paste information:
Barn door" halibut are typically females. Females grow much larger than males, which rarely reach a length of 3 feet. (I knew Males were smaller but not to this extent)
Mother halibut get more prolific as they get bigger. A 50-pound female produces about 500,000 eggs, and more eggs mean more future halibut to catch! A 250-pound female can produce 4 million eggs!
Halibut have been getting smaller for their age since the 1970s. By the 2000s, an average 12-year-old halibut weighed half as much as one in the 1980s. The reasons for the decrease in size are unknown, but competition for food, climate effects, and fishing effects are possible causes.
Commercial fishery has a minimum size of 32" (head on). (Not sure if this applies to US only or Canada as well.)(May be different for different areas)
searun
Well-Known Member
Not too surprising.
The SFAB Halibut WG completed a significant data review of a new source of recreational halibut data. Many people do not know, that 2 years back DFO changed the iREC survey to ask fishers completing it to go to their paper license and/or Fishing BC app and provide the actual length data for all retained halibut. This provided us with a robust set of data where we could complete an analysis to bin the number of fish caught in each CM length.
What our data demonstrated was the vast majority of fish retained by recreational fishers where below 100cm in length. This data also helped explain why when we appeared to have a significant underage last season in July and decided to amend the regulations to allow retention of 2 small under in one day - that within a few weeks that light switch resulted in our fishery cranking through a lot of TAC and an early closure of the season.
Bottom line is the halibut biomass has significantly shifted with very poor recruitment years with the exception of 2012 and 2016. Those 2 spawning years fish are small in size and now dominate the available to catch halibut because the larger fish have aged out of the population, and the poor spawning success of other years resulted in very few recruits - so less larger older fish in the population available to catch.
There are large fish around, not many compared to prior seasons.
If you are encountering larger fish, move locations to areas frequented by smaller chickens. Not ideal if you happen to be lucky enough to get a larger fish and are forced to release it, but to create a full season with a very small limited TAC that meant we had to lower the size limit to 102 cm to slow down our use of TAC in hopes we create a full season from April to December.
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