High ex-vessel prices for halibut spelled success for the 2006 season with more than 90 percent of the total allowable catch harvested in the majority of areas.

Fishermen are still going out to catch their last few thousand pounds of individual fishing quotas, but for many the nearly nine-month season is over.

The halibut season, managed under the IFQ program, opened March 5, 2006, and closes Nov. 15. The halibut fishery runs concurrently with the IFQ fishery for sablefish.

International Pacific Halibut Commission executive director Bruce Leaman described the 2006 fishery as “reasonable.”

“I think there were more smaller fish around, which we have been expecting because there has been some cycling in the strength of year classes that have been coming into the fishery,” Leaman said.

The assessment process is in its beginning stages so the IPHC does not yet know the outlook for the 2007 halibut season. They normally come out with recommendations for next year in the first week of December.

The IPHC expects to see smaller fish than in previous years. The year classes of 1987 and 1988 have passed out of the fishery.

The next set of stronger-year classes was in 1993, 1994 and 1995 and they normally don’t start recruiting until the age of 8, Leaman said. They are not fully recruited until the age of 11 or 12.

“Recruit” refers to young fish that are reaching the size where they can be taken with fishing gear. A tiny fish has not been recruited in the fishery yet. If it is big enough to be taken in the commercial fishery, it is called a recruit.

Although the halibut’s age at maturity varies over time, about half of male halibut are sexually mature by 8 years of age, while half of the females are mature by age 11. Female halibut grow faster and are typically larger than males of the same age. Males rarely reach 100 pounds.

Halibut age is estimated by counting growth rings laid down in the fishes’ otolith, a bony structure in the inner ear.

“In the Central Gulf, growth rates have been very low because abundance has been fairly high. The fish have been growing very slowly and recruiting at somewhat later ages than they used to come into the fishery,” Leaman said.

Fishermen look for larger fish because there is a big difference in the price paid for a smaller fish versus a larger fish on a per-pound basis because labor costs are lower to process larger fish. The price differential creates issues for how and when people fish, he said.

According to the fish column “Fish Factor” by Laine Welch, earlier in the year, halibut prices were around $3.30 a pound for 10 to 20 pounders, $3.55 for 20 to 40’s and $3.75 for 40 pounds and up.

The IPHC keeps a close eye on trends in the fishery.

“If we look at the trends that we have been seeing in areas, the Central Gulf has been coming down from some historic highs reached in the late 1990s and the early part of this century. We’ve been coming down from that very high peak,” Leaman said.

“We have been seeing some fairly strong signs of incoming recruitment in the Western Gulf, what we call Area 3B, from the tip of Kodiak to the end of the Alaska Peninsula,” he said.

But many of those halibut are small and can’t be retained. It is also not certain whether they will stay in that area.

Information about the biomass is gained through surveys and also from logbooks kept by the commercial fishing fleet.

“We have a very good relationship with the commercial industry,” Leaman said. “They share the logbook information with us. That’s a primary source of information for us in doing the assessment as well as our research surveys.”

He called this year’s halibut prices “phenomenal,” and noted that now, the ex-vessel price for large halibut is more than $5 a pound.

Although halibut prices have been high, the IPHC is concerned about potential market resistance.

“I was in a store in Seattle not too long ago, and halibut fillets were $19.99 a pound.

“I don’t know who buys them — it certainly isn’t me,” he said.

He said price does not influence how the IPHC makes decisions.

Mirror writer Deanna Cooper may be reached via e-mail at dcooper@kodiakdailymirror.com.