West Coast halibut catch falls to a fifth of June's rate as NOAA adds a sixth period

NOAA Fisheries is adding a sixth West Coast halibut period, giving the fleet more time to reach an allocation it has not caught. Landings fell from 65,129 pounds in the late-June opener to 13,574 pounds in Period #5, Sept. 1 to Sept. 3, roughly a fifth. Periods #2 through #4 ran 44,127 to 50,633 pounds.

Boats get another 58 hours on the water Tuesday, Sept. 15, opening at 8 a.m. and closing Sept. 17 at 6 p.m. Roughly 37,450 pounds remain of the year's non-Tribal directed commercial allocation, the share reserved for non-tribal commercial boats. NOAA Fisheries announced it Thursday and set the vessel limit at 5,000 pounds dressed weight, gutted and head off, for every size class, not just the largest boats.

NOAA Fisheries has said only that added periods are "intended to provide additional opportunity for the fleet to achieve the 2026 non-Tribal directed commercial fishery allocation" set at 261,211 pounds for waters south of Point Chehalis, Washington. The agency has not attributed the slower pace to any particular cause.

Area 2A, off Washington, Oregon and California, is not an Alaska regulatory area, but it draws on the same coastwide Pacific halibut stock the International Pacific Halibut Commission manages, the one Alaska IFQ holders, who hold transferable quota, charter operators and subsistence users depend on.

The Commission's January assessment found commercial catch rates coastwide and nearly all areas near 40-year lows, and spawning biomass near its lowest since the 1970s, though the stock has risen 8% since 2024 and is not overfished. Coastwide limits fell 15.8% for 2025 and every Alaska area took a cut, about 20% in the Central Gulf. Area 2A's did not move, for 2025 or 2026.