In the interim, a stakeholders committee met in late February, and is scheduled to meet again March 21-22 in Anchorage to develop two alternatives for longer-term management of the charter halibut fishery.

Among the proposals being considered by stakeholders are one from the Homer Charter Association that would allow all halibut charter vessels registered in 2005 to get initial quota. Vessel owners who fished any of the years from 2000 to 2005 would also be able to pick their best harvest year for determination of their quota share, said Bob Ward, secretary for the association.

"Right now we all get too small of a piece of the pie to live on," Ward said. "Once we have our quota, there will be some consolidation of the charter fleet (through sale of quota shares). Each boat will carry more passengers, which will provide more profitability, which will provide more investment income to buy (commercial) quota shares."

Currently there are no restrictions on starting new halibut charters, other than having a Coast Guard license to carry people and liability insurance, Ward said. "People can move from Florida to Alaska today and put out a shingle," he said.

"Everybody can catch two halibut of any size, every day," Ward said. "And our season is all but January, although weather constrains us to from May to September."

Ward said there are currently 1,156 qualified halibut charter vessels in Southeast and Southcentral Alaska, some of which can carry six clients, others up to 28. "It only takes 211 boats with six passengers to catch the entire guideline harvest level for areas 2C (Southeast Alaska) and 3A (the central Gulf of Alaska, Yakutat, Prince William Sound, Seward, the Kenai Peninsula and Kodiak combined)," he said. "So we need to do something about eliminating some boats. It will make the survivors more efficient and more profitable, and they will make enough money to buy (commercial halibut) quota," when it is for sale.

State officials are pursuing another route, with several facets, including support of a tax stamp for everybody that goes fishing on a charter boat. This would require all clients aboard charter vessels to purchase a stamp in addition to a fishing license.

Council member Arne Fuglvog, a Petersburg fisherman, said he is cautiously optimistic that the council will come up with a solution. "I feel the state is really committed to resolving this," Fuglvog said in the aftermath of the council's February meeting.

"(Fish and Game Commissioner McKie) Campbell seems to be very committed, and I'm really encouraged by that," he said. "The problem is we are not sure who is going to be the next governor. Is the state going to stay committed?"

Meanwhile, the council action on the table for April is to decide what measures must be taken to get the guided halibut harvest down below the guideline harvest level.

At its February meeting in Seattle, the federal council approved the release of a draft analysis of charter halibut guideline harvest levels for final action at its April meeting in Anchorage.

"We are over the guideline harvest level in Southeast Alaska, but if projections are correct, we will be under the guideline harvest level in area 3A," Fuglvog said.

"The latest year we have (harvest) data for is 2004," he said. "Sport fish numbers show that in 2004, we were slightly over the allowed harvest in area 3A and 22 percent over the allowed harvest in Southeast Alaska."

Initial plan scrapped

The renewed efforts to resolve the future of halibut charter fishing quotas comes on the heels of a December meeting, in which the North Pacific Fishery Management Council moved the whole issue back to square one, more than four years after the quotas were approved but never implemented.

The original plan called for halibut charter vessel owners to be assigned individual fishing quotas to be used by clients aboard their vessels. The quotas were to be based on the owner's history in the fishery.

Commissioner Campbell, speaking at the December session in Anchorage, voiced the state's opposition to moving the halibut charter IFQ proposal forward.

Campbell said he felt the fatal flaw centered on participants in the fishery. A number of fishermen who qualified in the spring of 2001, when the council first approved the plan, are no longer involved in the industry, and others who entered the fishery after the qualifying period would have no quota and could conceivably challenge the issue in court, he said.

The council subsequently approved formation of a stakeholder work group to consider two alternatives by April. One option would allow for a finite number of charter vessels and possible bag limits. The other would allow for charter boat IFQs, with provisions to grant quotas to those new to the fishery.

The council directed staff to revise the analysis to include several items, including discussion of a possible request to the International Pacific Halibut Commission to create a separate accountability system for guided sport and commercial harvests of halibut. The revised analysis was expected to be available to the public in early March.

The council's decision to move the whole plan back to the drawing board was unprecedented in council history. The federal body had spent several years analyzing and debating the plan before approving it in April 2001.

According to council member Ed Rasmuson, it was simply a fairness issue. "We don't have a problem with abundance; we have a problem with allocation," he said. With the number of residents and visitors to Alaska increasing, the council needs to look at giving more quota to charter boats and sport anglers, he said.

Linda Behnken, director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association, saw the issue differently. Behnken voted for the halibut charter IFQs in 2001 as a member of the council. She said the December vote "took a giant step into the past.

"They're afraid to make hard decisions to maintain the health of the resource and the health of the industry," she said.

Behnken said the plan adopted by the council in 2001 was the result of eight years of council work, involving hours of debate, hundreds of pages of analysis and input from all sectors of the industry.

"From my perspective, it balanced the needs of all sectors of the halibut industry, consumers and charter clients," she said.

Margaret Bauman can be reached at