Towards a new management approach: Defining recreational fishing effort in the Alaska halibut charter fishery

In Alaska, many recreational fishermen gain access to Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) with knowledgeable captains aboard chartered sportfishing boats. Traditionally, and when viewed against a backdrop of commercial fishing effort, management agencies and the fishing public perceived recreational fishing as harmless in terms of stock depletion. Recent research suggests this perception is false. Management for the charter fishery has been evolving since 1993, consuming countless hours of industry and management time and resources, still with no settled plan in place. The charter fleet requires a long-term management strategy so that charter operators can plan their businesses for the long-term. This paper addresses management of marine recreational fishing in general, focusing on the Alaska halibut charter fishery.; Part of the challenge with the halibut charter fishery's management development is a lack of definition of recreational fishing effort. I attempt to build an approach to recreational fishery management by segmenting recreational fishing effort into separate categories, selecting those categories present in the Alaska halibut charter fishery, and discussing management tools which may satisfy the needs of that fishing effort. Fishermen in the charter fishery are a diverse group with multiple aims for their fishing trips, which range from high halibut landings to broad recreational experiences in the Alaska wilderness. I suggest queue and lottery type distribution mechanisms, combined with elements of traditional open access tools already common in fisheries, as possible resolutions to the delayed development of a charter halibut management plan.