Halibut TAC 2018

They have a meeting at end of July. Throw them an email mid August and they’ll tell you numbers as of July 31. We will have a lot leftover this year I’m betting
 
Might not with salmon restrictions in some areas I am betting it shuts down early as more target halibut. I would use the caution approach in this one.
 
Already released 15 halibut could of kept last year. It’s june 10. We only needed to save 90,000-100,000 lbs or so.

Anyway. That debate has been covered. Time will tell. Fairly confident about it though.
 
From what I have seen and heard this year from my catch, friends and marinas there are WAY less hali in JDF this year than the last few years. Most people I talk to are having trouble finding them. This was also mentioned in the north island reports by Codfather I believe. Less around, may help save some TAC, but I am sure the fly over plane still has us slaying them.

HM
 
I can confirm halibut are scarce in JDF. Four trips = four boat rides. These were trips to spots that have produced pretty consistently over the years too.
 
It is indeed very slow out there. I am hearing that guides who are very experienced with Hali are having to work hard to find keepers.
Ironically this comes in a year where we took a huge reduction with a much smaller slot off Victoria and Sooke. Over fishing in terms of TAC will not be an issue for south VI. Not to mention that for Sooke we lost 5 of our 7 best salmon spots and most of our best Hali Holes with the massive closure of most of our coast to ALL fin fish sport fishing.
 
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I also noticed Halibut decline beginning about 3 years ago.
An incidental halibut while salmon fishing was common years ago
not so much anymore
 
I did just fine until they closed in Sep last year. There were still plenty of halis in the places we typically fish in the JdF. Not so much now. Strange. And I did not notice any decline prior to that, in fact hali catching last year was easy besides the dogfish pest.
 
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