Lines out of the water by Halloween

For recreational halibut fishers, October 31st is more for tricks than treats, when it comes to the quest for halibut on the North Coast.

DFO has issued a decision that eliminates the ability for anglers and charter clients to catch any halibut from Oct. 31 to the end of the calendar year. A decision which has the members of the Sport Fishing industry joining the chorus of displeasure with the handling by the Department of Fisheries of the fish resources of the north coast.

The Daily News featured the decision and the Industry reaction to it as the front page, headline story in Friday's paper.

SPORT FISHERMEN STUNNED AS HALIBUT PUT OFF-LIMITS
Recreational fishery to be closed until end of the year, commercial sector is unaffected
By Kris Schumacher
The Daily News
Friday, October 24, 2008

Pages one and two

The recreational halibut fishery in British Columbia will be closed one week from today, announced Fisheries and Oceans Canada yesterday morning.

The DFO decision effectively eliminates the ability for anglers and charter clients to catch any halibut from Oct. 31 to the end of the calendar year.

Already the decision has prompted harsh criticism from recreational stakeholders such as the Sport Fishing Institute of British Columbia (SFI), which claims the 10,000 pounds of fish the sport sector could have caught before Dec. 31 pales in comparison to the 1.3 million pounds the commercial halibut fishery is expected to catch during that two-month period.

"This decision represents the complete failure of government's halibut allocation policy in that recreational anglers are being told to stay home while commercial fishers will continue to harvest halibut," said SFI President Rob Alcock.

"Make no mistake, this decision will not conserve halibut, it will only further the interests of a small group of wealthy commercial licence holders. The result is that family fishing trips and fishing charters will be cancelled and many in the public fishery will suffer because DFO insists on clinging to a nonsensical and unworkable policy."

The SFI said the decision contradicts an explicit promise from former Fisheries Minister Robert Thibault that the department would not make in-season adjustments to the fishery.

The promise was made back in 2003 when an interim halibut allocation policy was enacted, under which British Columbia's 430 commercial halibut fishers were awarded 88 per cent of the annual halibut harvest, and the province's 300,000 recreational anglers were given access to 12 per cent of the catch.

The SFI and other recreational groups have attempted to develop a quota transfer system through years of work with DFO, which they claim has failed due to the overtly flawed allocation policy.