08-17-2011, 03:44 PM
"does it make you curious why he'd want you to release those large, spawning halibut?? "
Well all halibut over about 75 pounds are female. Scientists are not sure if they undergo a sex change as they get larger, or if the males just do not grow any bigger. Because we do find female fish with eggs smaller then the 75 pound range. But no males above that. And I have personally filleted a few thousand halibut in the past many years.
So I see the point of throwing back the big ones since they are all egg makers. But with that, no one knows much about the halibut breeding process because it happens in the middle of the Berring Sea in December and January, not exactly conducive to research projects.
My genuine thought on this whole thing is to limit residents and non residents to an annual and daily quota. With that rule, you keep the first fish to hit the boat. So for example, you get to keep 2 fish per day, of any size. But they have to be the first 2 fish you catch. SO if you catch chickens that day you get to keep 2 chickens, no putting back the small ones in the hope you get something bigger. Then you could limit non residents to 10 halibut per. So if you go on a 7 day trip, you may not be able to fish halibut the last day of he trip, but that's just the breaks. Give residents the same daily quota, but bump them up to like 50 halibut per year. AND a resident's quota does take into account the long lines they can put down on a subsistance permit. That way you don't get the "subsistance sales" that some residents do as a back door quasi commercial set up. That fish is not even calculated into the fish take numbers.
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Well all halibut over about 75 pounds are female. Scientists are not sure if they undergo a sex change as they get larger, or if the males just do not grow any bigger. Because we do find female fish with eggs smaller then the 75 pound range. But no males above that. And I have personally filleted a few thousand halibut in the past many years.
So I see the point of throwing back the big ones since they are all egg makers. But with that, no one knows much about the halibut breeding process because it happens in the middle of the Berring Sea in December and January, not exactly conducive to research projects.
My genuine thought on this whole thing is to limit residents and non residents to an annual and daily quota. With that rule, you keep the first fish to hit the boat. So for example, you get to keep 2 fish per day, of any size. But they have to be the first 2 fish you catch. SO if you catch chickens that day you get to keep 2 chickens, no putting back the small ones in the hope you get something bigger. Then you could limit non residents to 10 halibut per. So if you go on a 7 day trip, you may not be able to fish halibut the last day of he trip, but that's just the breaks. Give residents the same daily quota, but bump them up to like 50 halibut per year. AND a resident's quota does take into account the long lines they can put down on a subsistance permit. That way you don't get the "subsistance sales" that some residents do as a back door quasi commercial set up. That fish is not even calculated into the fish take numbers.
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