Halibut demand, prices excel

By I-CHUN CHE

With a strong price and steady demand, longliners are expecting a good season for halibut.

Since the halibut season opened Feb. 27, Southeast Alaska has seen 250 vessel landings of halibut and caught almost 1.2 million pounds of halibut, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Statewide, the halibut caught in the first month of the season weighed more than 5 million pounds, about 9 percent of the quota allowed for individual halibut fishing through November.

"This year is a little bit faster than last year," said Phil Smith, program administrator for restrictive access management for NOAA fisheries in Alaska. "If the market is tight and the price at the dock is good, the guys might just go out fishing."

Eric Norman, general manager of Taku Fisheries, said halibut is selling at a slightly higher price this year than last year.

"Last year, the price was about $3.25 per pound. It is about $3.35 this year," Norman said. "There is a demand in Seattle and nationwide. Everybody is competing to buy fish from fishermen. They can push the price a little bit. Consequently, we sell it a little bit higher."

Mike Erickson, co-owner of Alaska Glacier Seafoods, said he doesn't expect the price to rise too much.

"The pricing has been stabilized since the introduction of IFQs (individual fishing quotas)", Erickson said. "You don't see the spikes up and the spikes down. That's good for everyone."

Under the IFQ system, launched in 1995, longliners fish for their share of the total halibut quota. Quota shares were allocated based on longliners' previous fishing experience, but fishermen also can purchase shares of the harvest.

Erickson, who runs Taku Fisheries with his son, said he didn't see a big wave of fish come in during the first two weeks of the season partly because of the stable price and partly because of bad weather.

"A lot of guys say, why do they need to go out there and beat themselves up, when the price won't change that much?" Erickson said.

Erickson said many fishermen are trying to catch black cod instead of halibut right now because they want to sell the cod to Japan before May 1.

"You can see a better price in Japan because they have a celebration of the Golden Week," a Japanese holiday, Erickson said.

Fisherman Jesse Yount, a Cordova resident, said he has caught a few halibut on his black cod lines.

"We sold the halibut at $3.40," said Yount, who is mooring at Juneau Intermediate Vessel Float. "It is a really good price." He said he focuses on catching black cod at this point but will do some halibut fishing later at the Fairweather grounds.

"We want to catch black cod before the whales come back," Yount, 24, said. "The whales like to steal them off the hook. All they leave is heads."

Like Yount, Jeff Middleton, an Oregon fisherman who just came up from Seattle, plans to fish black cod first and then halibut.

"The price of halibut is usually better in the summer," said Middleton, 38. "The very first of the halibut season has a good price. But we couldn't come up that early. We didn't want to fight the weather, either. We will wait for the summertime. In between, we just go for black cod."

• I-Chun Che can be reached at ichun.che@juneauempire.com.