Bob's Anchorage oddity.

We are in for a crazy ride at the council, Rasmusen has “His Bob Penny plan” and that is all he will talk about. He even called it his Bob Penny Plan. His first statement was “we will end ALL commercial leasing of quota”, no more sitting on the beach while others are out fishing your quota. (There is little leasing, only in A class shares which are “Catcher-Freezer shares, all other commercial QS holders must be onboard to fish their quota now). His plan is to get a LOAN for 20 to 30 million dollars, buy a million pounds from the commercial, and then to TAX us at the end of the year at $5.00 to 10.00 per person to pay the loan back. We will continue to do this until we “have more than enough” and then lease back to the commercials what we don’t need. “They can’t lease but we can?” The moratorium will go away and we will continue to grow. All inside waters will be sport only, and we will eventually own all the fish and the commercials will only get what we want to lease them. He would not let me talk about IFQ’s at all, not even talk about it. He was slamming his hands down on HIS Boardroom Table and got most animated, and I backed off and sat there and watched the show. He said both at our meeting and then yesterday in front of the Stakeholders the EXACT same thing, and then he said he would not sit and listen to 16 hours of “Charterboat CRAP” and he didn’t need this job and he would quit if it continues.......Sounds like Bob Penny all over again. He said he did not have the votes to raise the GHL....and if he couldn’t find the money from the state or feds he would put it up himself...sounds like a banker to me, looking for an interest opportunity for his bank? The Stakeholders went over the IFQ plan and they made some changes which I supported. We would look at establishing each boat’s catch rate from 2006 logbooks. Divide the number of halibut harvested by the number of anglers taken, this will give each boat his individual catch rate...2 or 1.5 or whatever it is per person. We next apply that rate to your logbooks from 1998, or 2000 through 2005, for each year based on your logged number of bottomfish anglers. Then you pick your best 3 years in that time period and average them out for your percentage of the total pool of charter boats in 3A. The next step is to apply that percentage to whatever the GHL, or allocation amount (soon to be debated and determined at the council) and you have your initial issue of quota. This same idea can be applied to the Angler day concept but after sitting there yesterday and listening to questions that I knew the answer to and the intent of, but I could not talk....which you know just about killed me, and being as how the general idea was moved though the committee with full approval I saw no need to stay.