Halibut Market
The West Coast Halibut season officially ends November 15th , 2009 . There will still be fish available that some producers may
hold back from the last days of fishing to maximize profits for the close of the season. We could see West Coast Halibut until approximately Nov 20th.
As for the East Coast Fishery product the fishing is random and product is, as always priced higher then that of the
west coast fish. Prices on East Coast Trip Halibut will remain in the 7.50 - 795 range , while Day boat fish
will be some where 8.25 - 8.95 for their catch. Their are many factors which can effect the price of Halibut most specifc key factors include weather and market conditions.
Management of the Pacific halibut fishery is based on an agreement between Canada and the U.S. and is given effect in the U.S. by the Northern Pacific Halibut Act of 1982. Per the terms of the Act, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) recommends regulations to govern the directed halibut fisheries in waters off Alaska, provided that its actions do not conflict with regulations recommended by the IPHC. NPFMC actions must be approved and implemented by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.
An Assessment of the Pacific halibut stock at the end of 2008 done by Steven R. Hare and William G. Clark can be found at the International Pacific Halibut Comission Website: Below is the Abstract
As has been done since 2006, the IPHC stock assessment was done by fi tting the assessment model to a coastwide dataset to estimate total exploitable biomass. The coastwide exploitable biomass was then apportioned among regulatory areas in accordance with survey estimates of relative abundance, corrected for regional hook competition. Coastwide exploitable biomass in 2009 is estimated to be 325 million pounds, down from the 361 million estimated last year. Virtually all of the decrease is due to lower survey and commercial catch rates of legal-sized halibut. Projections based on the currently estimated age compositions suggest that the exploitable and female spawning biomasses will increase over the next several years as a sequence of strong year classes recruit to the legal-sized component of the population.
Halibut Cheeks are considered a delicacy and make for an excellent special when available.
