Alaska's wild halibut and black cod season is set to open Saturday, 8 March, two months after the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) set 2014 catch levels that continued the trend of quota cutting for another year.
In January, the IPHC set an overall catch limit of 27.5 million pounds, which was an 11.2 percent cut from the 2013 quota, which itself had been cut 7.5 percent from 2012.
Based on the current catch limits, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council allocated 16.8 million pounds of halibut quota to the Alaska fisheries. Alaska fisheries also have a quota of 33.6 million pounds of black cod.
According to the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, Alaska fisheries produce more than 95 percent of the Pacific halibut and more than 70 percent of the black cod harvested in the United States.
