The International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) is seeking to charter longline vessels for its 2023 Fishery-Independent Setline Survey. The main purpose of this survey is to collect standardized data for use in the Pacific halibut stock assessment.
Information collected is also used to study aspects of the Pacific halibut resource including growth, distribution, biomass, age composition, sexual maturity and relative abundance of other species.
Legal sized Pacific halibut and Pacific halibut less than 32 inches in length that have been sampled — as well as incidentally caught fish that will die upon release — are to be retained, sampled for biological data and sold by the IPHC to offset the cost of the setline survey.
The survey will cover 21 charter regions within the IPHC Convention Area with a standard grid of stations from Oregon to the northern Bering Sea, including the Aleutian Islands. The survey must be completed between May 26 and Sept. 15 of next year.
The IPHC will consider only those vessels with captains and crews that have recent Pacific halibut fishing experience withing the past five years. The IPHC may require an inspection of the vessel prior to awarding the charter.
Vessels don’t need to be licensed for Pacific halibut fishing in Canada or the U.S. to be eligible. The IPHC is does not restrict based on nationality of the vessels it charters for operation in any region, as long as customs and immigration regulations are followed. Interested vessel owners are invited to submit tenders based upon the 2023 IPHC Fishery-Independent Setline Survey Vessel Tender Specifications. The Tender Specifications and Vessel Tender forms for this project may be downloaded and accessed directly from the IPHC website here: Vessel Recruiting | IPHC
