The trawl fisheries used to comprise 70 percent of our gross; halibut made up the rest. But in the last seven years, especially the most recent three years, that trend has changed drastically. The rationalized halibut fishery has increased in value close to threefold, while the race for fish in the derby-style trawl fisheries has continued to decline.

Why? For these reasons:

• We have smaller quotas divided between more participants;

• Smaller vessels can’t compete with larger vessels when weather is bad;

• Steller sea lion Endangered Species Act measures are increasingly disruptive to efficient fishing;

• The quotas are unmanageable due to the small size. This is because of the quarterly openings versus bi-annual openings which was caused by the ESA measures and the fact that there are too many fishers who have come from other areas (i.e. the Bering Sea) in the Gulf. This is because of the race to gain history in the fishery;

• Fuel expenses are beyond outrageous and out of our control;

• The observer requirements are more than the 30 percent rate for pulse fisheries and the fines are a burden for not being able to get an observer.

With the dirty few that drive the bycatch rate out of reach and with the quotas being caught so quickly, the cleaner fisherman has no time to look for cleaner grounds to avoid the bycatch.

The operating margin in the open access trawl fishery has minimized to the point of non-existence while the revenue generated by the rationalized fishery (halibut for example) has increased. Please note: I was awarded 25 percent of our present halibut quota. We purchased the remaining 75 percent. We took the risk and made it work.

American Fisheries Act pollock fishery in the Bering Sea is working quite well for all size vessels. Many fishermen in the Gulf of Alaska would like a similar system that has proven its merit. The benefits would include: better recovery for the plants, more value to the processed product, minimized; and/or better-managed bycatch and the ability to wait out bad weather which is a real safety concern for the smaller vessel operators such as me. Could this even reduce insurance costs?

Regarding new entrants into the rationalization process, there is already a state waters fishery for new entrants. It is fully subscribed. Each year the season gets shorter because of more effort. This is very similar to the federal fishery. Adding more quota to the state waters fishery is a band-aid fix addressing the symptoms and not the root problem. We have a finite resource with more effort and interested potential effort than the resource can sustain.

The council stated they would allow the trawl fleet to go ahead with the rationalization process. If other gear groups do not want to be included, then why include them?

The vocal opponents are not in the trawl fleet. Some of the opponents are recent entrants to the Gulf groundfish fisheries and do not have long-term history. Some fixed-gear fishermen want the rationalization now.

Every open access fishery has been persecuted until there is no profit. License limitation programs have created too many licenses. Trip limits promote waste. West Coast groundfish has proven that.

In order to be good stewards of the resource, we need some type of rationalization as soon as possible.

Philip S. Drage is a Gulf of Alaska fisherman. He and his wife own the F/V Coho, of which he captains 90 percent of the season. They trawl for Pacific cod, Pollock and rockfish in the Gulf out of Kodiak. They fish halibut in areas 3A and 3B.