HOMER -- Scott Glosser has been captain of halibut charter boats out of Homer for 22 years. He has owned his own boat for nine of those years. But because he was fishing for someone else in 1998 and 1999, he won't qualify for any of the individual fishing quota shares handed out under a federal plan that is on the verge of being adopted.
Glosser says he'll be out of business, along with maybe a third of the fleet in the self-proclaimed "halibut capital of the world."
Bryan Bondioli did fish his own boat those two key summers. But because his business was just starting up, his boats weren't full of clients in those early years. He'll qualify for enough quota to carry about half as many clients as he normally gets these days. Half-empty boats won't cover his payments and other expenses, and buying more shares will just raise his overhead. He says he'll go out of business too.
With final rules for limiting Alaska's halibut charter fleet expected in a month or so, Glosser and Bondioli have teamed up with several dozen other skippers in Homer and other ports to attempt a desperate goal-line stand.
"A lot of us are grandfathered in, but we're also opposed to the philosophical concept," said Greg Sutter, owner of Captain Greg's Charters. "In the future it will turn into a rich man's fishery. We need to leave it open for access to the average Joe."
Many of the town's skippers have broken with the local charter fishing association, which supports the plan, and formed their own group, the Alaska Charter Association.
They complain that the proposed quota system would stifle tourism growth, hurt charter boat clients and be unfair to many of the 1,000-plus saltwater guides in the state. They hope to persuade U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez to send the final rules back to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, the commercial fishing-dominated group that approved the charter boat plan in 2001.
In recent weeks the splinter group's eleventh-hour effort has won support from local tourism businesses and backing resolutions from the Homer Chamber of Commerce and the Homer City Council.
As last-minute stands go, however, this one stacks up like the Homer junior varsity trying to keep the Philadelphia Eagles out of the end zone.
Supporters of the plan say it was worked out over nearly a decade of negotiations among user groups, which started as commercial fishermen grew concerned about the growing charter catch in the early 1990s.
"It's a limited resource and it's been fully utilized for 100 years," said Linda Behnken, director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association and a North Pacific council member when the plan was approved. "When you have a new sector growing and catching more fish, it's coming at the expense of the existing users."
The powerful council, with the backing of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has been privatizing commercial fisheries in halibut, cod, crab and other federally managed species (but not salmon, which are managed under a different system by the state). Alaska's commercial halibut fishery has brought fishermen more than $150 million a year lately.
Supporters concede that bringing this brave new world to recreation will create regulatory challenges. But they say awarding shares of the guiding industry to veteran skippers based on past catches is the best way to ensure a healthy fleet, given the limits on guided angling imposed by the North Pacific council.
"It's a real easy thing to be against, placing restrictions and limits where there were never any before," said quota backer Gary Ault, owner of Inlet Charters, one of the bigger Homer operations. "But the stickler is that the commercial fishing industry decided it cannot allow open-ended reallocation of the stock, with the charters out there promoting halibut fishing. We got handed an unworkable situation."
Ault said charter owners worked with the council and "floated a dozen different ideas" trying to find a way to build viable businesses under a catch limit. The quota was the best they could agree on, he said.
The new system will not affect individual anglers with their own boats. Nonguided sport and subsistence halibut will continue to be deducted off the top of each year's expected allowable catch of halibut, which is regulated by the federal government through the North Pacific council under a treaty with Canada.
Like many things about the halibut charter plan, the effects on anglers who use the charter boats are uncertain.
Opponents predict that quota shares, which can be bought and sold, will migrate to fewer, bigger boats (though the council plans to limit concentration to keep cruise ship companies, for example, from taking over the industry). They say the experience will deteriorate and prices for a day's fishing, which now run up to about $200, will rise. They describe a world in which unhappy tourists wander the docks, unable to find an empty seat.
"The future of Alaska is tourism. Why do we need to cap it right now at this level?" said Sutter, secretary of the new Alaska Charter Association.
Supporters respond that the quota will be equivalent to recent charter harvests, with a 25 percent increment for growth, so there should be plenty of room for clients in the near future. They concede that the system will eventually limit growth of the industry -- but that was a battle the charter boats lost in 1997, when the North Pacific council decided to protect the value of commercial fishing quota shares by limiting the growth of the charter catch.
Before that, the growing halibut charter catch was coming off the top of each year's harvest, along with other sport-caught halibut. The council, composed mostly of commercial fishing interests, wanted to avoid the endless allocation battles that bedevil the state's salmon regulators. The impact on commercial boats was biggest near ports like Homer, whose commercial fishermen's association supports the limits and objected to the City Council's recent action.
The first step was a "guideline harvest level" for the charters: 15 percent of the combined total harvest in Southcentral Alaska and 13 percent in Southeast. The numbers were based on historic catches with room for growth, and regulators say the guided anglers have not quite reached those limits. If they do, the council is authorized to impose restrictions, such as cutting the two-fish daily limit or even shutting down the charter fishery in midsummer. Charter captains said that would be a disaster for their industry, scaring away customers permanently.
The idea of individual fishing quotas, or IFQs, for charter boat captains grew out of this concern. Without IFQs, advocates said, the charter industry would devolve into the kind of race-for-the-resource derby that helped bring quotas to the commercial industry in 1995. With a known quota, a captain could book his summer's trips with predictability.
With support from some charter skippers, the council approved a quota plan in April 2001. But the council was split, and on reconsideration later that year the plan barely survived a 6-5 vote. Then-Gov. Tony Knowles led the opposition, saying there was no compelling need to impose the nation's first privatization of a sport fishery.
The new charter rule has been in the draft stage for more than three years as the National Marine Fisheries Service grappled with such questions as the accuracy of past catch records used to qualify for quota shares. The final rule will probably come out sometime in April, said Jane DiCosimo of the North Pacific council's staff. She said the council plans to appoint in June a halibut charter stakeholders group to comment on the rule and implementation of the new program.
Commerce Secretary Guttierez is expected to decide on the program after a 45-day public comment period.
The current council, which is appointed by the federal and state governments, has expressed no desire to revisit the question of whether to impose quotas, DiCosimo said.
Gov. Frank Murkowski is aware of past state opposition to the idea and is still studying the matter before taking a position, a spokesman said last week.
Despite the odds, some Homer charter captains are vowing to fight on. They say the allocation will be unfair, based on harvest logbooks kept by skippers who knew they would benefit someday if they recorded more fish. The state Department of Fish and Game reported to the council that the boat logbook totals were higher than the harvest reported by fishermen in the annual statewide survey. And the difference grew each year.
Homer opponents told the City Council they had surveyed 79 of the 88 charter operators in Homer. They said 29 would not get any IFQs and 19 would get only part of what they need. They said someone trying to enter the business would have to pay $200,000 or more to get enough quota.
Other concerns are that the system will be difficult and costly to enforce, invite cheating, and displace saltwater guides into targeting easy-to-deplete species such as rockfish and ling cod, as well as king salmon.
But supporters say the quota system will sort out the charter fleet's problems through what one North Pacific council member in 2001 called "the magic of the marketplace." The most efficient charter boats will stay busy, they say, while the many small and part-time operations may eventually sell their quota. That was what happened on the commercial side, Behnken said, where quota is now busily traded and the system is considered a success.
Reporter Tom Kizzia can be reached at tkizzia@adn.com or in Homer at 907-235-4244.
