Cost Of Halibut Per Pound

Longliners head out of Barkley Audio, on the w declension of Vancouver Isle, British Columbia, to offshore halibut angling grounds. Photograph by Matthew Maran/Minden Pictures

Why Does Halibut Cost Then Much?

There are proficient reasons why putting halibut on your plate tin can strain your wallet.

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Dishes fly across the galley. Water gushes through the scuppers and onto the deck. Five crew members on the 17.v-meter commercial halibut boat Borealis I walk like drunkards, holding onto annihilation stable. "We're going to get bounced around a bit," Dave Boyes, the boat's captain and possessor, deadpans.

My day started at first light, about six hours agone, watching the crew allow out 2,200 galvanized circle hooks laced with chunks of pollock, squid, and pinkish salmon to soak beyond 13 kilometers of ocean bottom. So, we ate breakfast and rested in cramped, cluttered bunks while the boat bounced on 1.5-meter waves and—below, in the common cold unseen depths—the hooks sunk deep into the lips of the predatory halibut.

At present, the crew readies for boxing, cinching rubber rain gear and running crude gutting knives beyond electric sharpeners—a portent of the bloodshed to come. When Boyes toots the boat's horn, it's game on.

My love of halibut got me hither—in Hecate Strait, off northern British Columbia—as did my disdain for the price. Salmon are held upwardly as the iconic symbol of the Pacific Northwest, but the fashion I come across it, halibut is male monarch, offering superior flavor and texture. When I can beget it, I serve the white fish baked with a glaze of butter, mayonnaise, and whole grain Dijon mustard.

During a summer visit to my local fish store—Mad Dog Crabs in the Cowichan Valley of Vancouver Island—fresh halibut fillets sold for CAN $6.38 per 100 grams, compared with $5.28 for sablefish and $iii.74 for sockeye salmon. "It's the prime number rib of the body of water," explained fishmonger Scott Mahon, who fished commercially for over 20 years. "Meliorate taste, better quality, and better shelf life." Unlike the farmed salmon manufacture, halibut aquaculture remains a relatively nascent enterprise and does not offer a less-expensive alternative to consumers.

Still, I cannot assist merely wonder why a wild, bottom-abode fish costs so much. To notice out, I am hitching a ride with Boyes for a calendar week on his first fishing trip of the twelvemonth, in May, gaining visceral insight into what it takes to put a pretentious little portion of halibut on my plate.

On lath the gunkhole, I stay well away from the hydraulically powered pulsate as the first longline is hauled aboard. Minutes go past with only empty hooks returned. "That's why they call it fishing, not catching," jokes the burly start mate and engineer, Angus Grout.

The first of about 200 halibut to exist defenseless this day approaches the surface, flashing its white belly and mottled chocolate-brown-greenish dorsum. It's an average-sized fish weighing about 11 kilograms and measuring about 1 meter from jaw to tail.

Equally more fish writhe to the surface, Boyes steers the boat from the deck while simultaneously detaching the claw assemblies and counting each halibut. Grout gaffs the catch and slings it into a plastic tote where it is bonked senseless with a wooden social club. Moving down the line, the fish lands with a thud on the gutting table, where other coiffure members remove the gills and guts. They reach into the crenel and tear out the gonads—"pulling the nuts" as it'due south called—somewhat reminiscent of my terminal digital rectal exam. The fish curl upward and give final silent gasps while their powerful tails thump, thump, thump the table in futile resistance.

There was a time non long agone when the commercial halibut fishery proved mortiferous for homo and fish—a complimentary-for-all in which licensed fishers competed to maximize their catches as fast as they could, often in bad weather and with disastrous results. On April 25, 1985, 18 men were rescued from the ocean or the decks of sinking boats and three died when a violent tempest hit the halibut fleet in Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte Audio, not far from where nosotros are angling today. "It was a impaired way to fish, and dangerous," Boyes recalls.

The crew of the Borealis I haul in longlines for halibut. Video by Larry Pynn

The Canadian regime took action to calm the frenzy and protect the halibut by introducing a quota organisation in 1991 that allocated fishing opportunities to licensed halibut fishers based on take hold of history and vessel size.

It amounts to a very private social club line-fishing a public resources.

The onetime direction system prepare up a feast-or-famine situation for halibut availability. Openings as brusque equally a few days resulted in the fleet'due south halibut grab existence unloaded all at once. Processors scrambled to find freezer space, while quality suffered and prices dropped. Under the new quota organization, fishers secure college prices for their catch by serving the fresh fish market over a longer fishing season, from March to Nov. And this affects the toll paid by consumers.

"The year after the quota system came into upshot, prices doubled," Boyes says. "There was a market waiting. Halibut is very desirable, and people are willing to pay a lot of money for it."

Merely as in any complimentary-marketplace economic system, prices cycle. "Halibut is a commodity," says Boyes, "merely similar aureate and lumber." Over the past couple of years, restaurants and retail fish shops have started to resist the high cost of halibut—and the wholesale price declined by well-nigh $ii per 0.45 kilogram.

Boyes has seen it all during his 42 years on the seas. He is a worldly, unemotional man who speaks softly and deliberately, and wears a tarred sail sou'wester his mother gave him in the 1970s. He uses three different electronic navigational programs in the wheelhouse but still struggles to make catch notations on a new tablet instead of paper. "I guess information technology's time for me to enter the modern age," he says.

The coiffure is a cohesive, happy unit, with a sense of sense of humour and strong work ethic, toiling from dawn to dusk without complaint. They are the antithesis of the sinister prototype of a large corporate fishing company and are all relatives or longtime friends, generally living in the Comox Valley of Vancouver Island.

Boyes's daughter, Tiare, has been helping out on her dad's boat for 17 years, since she was 12. She wasn't always proud to say she fished, but the seasonal gig put her through academy. "When I was a kid, I worried about all the fish I was killing," she confides. "Then I returned their hearts to the ocean."

There is little fourth dimension for sentimentality on the Borealis I. Gutted fish fly down the boat's concord to be kept fresh on water ice. But as chickens can run effectually with their heads chopped off, nerve cells in the halibut allow some to quiver hauntingly. Equally the twenty-four hour period progresses, a slippery, shifting mass of gooey entrails covers the deck. Moving picture directors Quentin Tarantino and the belatedly Sam Peckinpah would appreciate the gore. Despite her conflict over the carnage, Tiare has a macabre side, which she showed in a Christmas gift to the coiffure—a custom jigsaw puzzle made from an paradigm of fish guts. "It was pretty challenging," Boyes says.

Dave Boyes and his daughter, Tiare, bait halibut hooks while anchored off southeastern Haida Gwaii, British Columbia. Photo by Larry Pynn

Dave Boyes and his daughter, Tiare, allurement halibut hooks while anchored off southeastern Haida Gwaii, British Columbia. Photo by Larry Pynn

Yesterday, under meliorate ocean conditions, I stood a expert meter away from the action, and the flying blood even so found me, splattering onto my article of clothing, notebook, and camera. I drop even got upward my nostril—a rare, opposite nosebleed.

Even so, I rolled upward my sleeves and waded in, trying my hand at gutting and helping transfer the halibut downward the line. I even steeled myself and took a turn at chasing the writhing fish around the tote to knock them senseless. It's honest work, but after one-half an hour, I turned squeamish. I am prepared to impale what I catch, but the assembly line slaughter for the masses is more difficult to have.

Baiting the hooks is more my way.

We've been hauling in line for about four hours when the crew erupts with unbridled whoops and hollers as a monster halibut, weighing close to 90 kilograms—a cool $1,300 on the hook—comes aboard. Grout is the strongest crew member and tries in vain to hoist it onto the gutting table alone. "That's the first time I've seen him unable to lift a fish," says deckhand Pete Wyness, who's been fishing alongside Boyes since 1978. Compared with an average eleven-kilogram halibut in today's fishery, the largest on record—always females—accept been known to achieve more 200 kilograms and 55 years.

Tiare's conflict with the activity that's been such a big part of her life hasn't waned. She laments the loss of this huge spawner in its prime number and, once it'southward off the hook and on the gutting table, gently caresses its belly while whispering her condolences. "You know what it's maxim back?" asks the mischievous Wyness. "Fuck you!"

They're the earth'southward largest flatfish, merely Pacific halibut start their lives as minute larvae—swimming upright, like other fish, with one eye on each side of their heads. But at about ii.5 centimeters in length, the left center moves to the correct side, and at the historic period of six months, halibut settle onto the seafloor in sandy littoral areas from California to Alaska and due west to Japan.

Dave Boyes (left) hauls in halibut with help from first mate and engineer Angus Grout. Photo by Larry Pynn

Dave Boyes (left) hauls in halibut with assistance from first mate and engineer Angus Grout. Photo by Larry Pynn

As the fish proceed to grow and gain in commercial value, they fall nether one of the most tightly controlled fisheries in the world, designed to ensure long-term sustainability of the valuable stocks. The position of the Borealis I, like all boats in the halibut armada, is automatically tracked to assistance ensure it does non devious into airtight line-fishing areas. That GPS data, along with Boyes's fish count data, is handed over to a contracted visitor, Archipelago Marine Research, at trip's end. Two onboard video cameras are trained on the incoming grab to keep the crew honest. "Every fish gets its pic taken," Wyness confirms.

Archipelago Marine Research reviews ten percent of the video, and if the numbers don't lucifer the boat'southward log, the owner bears the toll of Archipelago reviewing the other 90 percentage. When the Borealis I returns to Port Hardy, the outset port on northern Vancouver Isle, an observer will be waiting to counterbalance and count the catch equally information technology is offloaded. Each halibut leaving the dock also has a plastic tag with a serial number inserted into the tail to trace its origin and clinch buyers that the fish came from a well-regulated fishery.

Management deportment aren't limited to fish. The crew is required to deploy tori lines, which consist of a towed buoy with streamers on either side of the longline. The buoys discourage diving birds, such equally blackness-footed albatrosses, from trying to steal bait from the descending gear. The halibut fishery is certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council and receives a thumbs upwards from the Monterey Bay Aquarium'southward Seafood Watch program.

After only a few days on lath, I appreciate that there is much to the fishery that goes unnoticed to consumers and that it takes an intense level of scrutiny to ensure halibut stocks remain healthy over the long-term.

In 2017, Fisheries and Oceans Canada reported 68 potential violations involving the commercial halibut fleet off the BC coast, including use of illegal gear, possession of prohibited species, and line-fishing in closed areas. The biggest penalty involved a $45,000 fine for fishing in a marine protected area.

About 150 boats participated in Canada'south Pacific longline halibut fishery in 2018, although halibut tin can also exist retained every bit by-grab in other fisheries, including rockfish and lingcod. The fleet, through its quota, is accountable for mortalities of all species defenseless while fishing for halibut and pays for annual inshore rockfish surveys every bit a manner of updating stock assessments.

The crew of the Borealis I—Kyla Savage, Pete Wyness, and Tiare Boyes—remove the guts, gills, and gonads from freshly caught halibut. Photo by Larry Pynn

The coiffure of the Borealis I—Kyla Savage, Pete Wyness, and Tiare Boyes—remove the guts, gills, and gonads from freshly defenseless halibut. Photograph past Larry Pynn

The management system puts force per unit area on fishers to limit their past-catch. "You don't but go fishing," Boyes says. "You can become into big trouble." Boyes typically catches 17 species; he targets halibut and the other xvi species are allowed by-catch quota. If Boyes exceeds his by-grab quota, he must "beg, borrow, or steal" available quota from other fishers or risk being shut down.

Halibut fishing management requires that individuals 81 centimeters and smaller exist tossed back into the ocean. The armada as well mainly uses #16 circumvolve hooks, which tend to take hold of the larger, more valuable fish. "It's a niggling chip like managing trees," explains scientist Ian Stewart with the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC), based in Seattle, Washington. "You need to let them grow when they're small, when the growth rate is fast." There have been discussions on a maximum size limit, but at that place are concerns over how many big halibut would die one time tossed back, adding to the portion of the fleet'due south overall take hold of assessed as bloodshed.

Even with such tight regulations and oversight, halibut stocks—including the size of individuals, overall numbers, and distribution—have fluctuated widely over the past century. In the belatedly 1970s, halibut were much larger: a 12-year-sometime female, for example, weighed virtually 22 kilograms, compared with just over 9 kilograms today. Various factors could be at play, including contest for nutrient with other species and bounding main changes that affect prey quality and availability. "Fishing may take a part to play, but it'southward certainly not the whole story," Stewart says.

The halibut population on the west coast is too in a period of lower recruitment, with fewer young fish entering the population, and that could soon result in reduced allowable catches—and, potentially, even higher prices.

The total 2017 halibut catch—commercial, Indigenous subsistence, and sport—from California through British Columbia to Alaska, was simply over 19,000 tonnes.

The IPHC, with three representatives each from Canada and the United States, sets annual fleet quotas.

"It can get begrudging at times, but nosotros're all fishermen and we go for a drink together later on," says Boyes, who served as a Canadian commissioner from 2012 to 2017.

Whichever side of the border you fish for halibut on, getting into the business is a formidable challenge. Boyes estimates the fiberglass Borealis I is worth at least $i.2-million, though someone could go a used wooden boat suitable for halibut fishing for closer to $300,000.

Captained by Dave Boyes, the 17.5-meter Borealis I is used primarily to fish for halibut in the northeast Pacific. Photo by Larry Pynn

Captained past Dave Boyes, the 17.5-meter Borealis I is used primarily to fish for halibut in the northeast Pacific. Photograph past Larry Pynn

Younger fishers starting from scratch would have to lease quota from others in the armada and slowly work their fashion into the manufacture, possibly supplementing their income by fishing for herring, salmon, tuna, or prawns.

"Like farming, it takes a lifetime to build up a assisting operation," says Boyes. "The idea of a 20-something just jumping in and having a successful fishing business correct off the bat does not happen and never did happen."

Boyes'due south 2018 fishing quota is 22 tonnes, most one-third of that leased, mainly from Canfisco, a seafood business organisation owned past Vancouver concern magnate Jim Pattison, at an approximate rate of $iv.35 per 0.45 kilogram. Indeed, the quota system has created a state of affairs whereby individuals, including those grandfathered into the fleet, tin can "fish" from their couches, profiting from leasing without even smelling the common salt air.

The cost of getting into the concern rises nigh twenty-fold for anyone wishing to purchase—rather than lease—quota from within the fleet.

"Halibut fishing is like royalty," Tiare says. "Either you are born into information technology or you marry into it."

Wyness cannot resist teasing. "That's why we telephone call you princess."

Keeping the boat running isn't cheap either. This i trip will fire upward an estimated $3,000 in diesel fuel fuel, plus $ane,770 for dockside monitoring. Boyes also merely spent $ten,000 for a rebuilt anchor winch. This year, Boyes will go fishing twice, over a total of 11 days, to land a halibut grab with a value budgeted $400,000.

And then there are the crew costs. Grout gets $40,000 as deck dominate for the season, and each of the three other crew members gets $34,000. "Information technology's similar winning the lottery," confides deckhand Kyla Barbarous while sending another halibut down the chute.

"Dave is very generous to his crew."

Later v days of fishing off southeastern Haida Gwaii and i day off Triangle Island near the northern tip of Vancouver Island, Boyes finally steers the Borealis I for the Canfisco dock in Port Hardy. The fish are then trucked to the company's plant in Vancouver for processing and shipment to markets.

The halibut take hold of weighs in at 12.five tonnes—more than half of Boyes'due south quota for the season. And the by-take hold of is well within the vessel'southward quota.

As the unloading wraps upward, I depart the Borealis I and permit the crew members to continue their overnight voyage home. It's been an enlightening trip for me. I meliorate understand the halibut economic system and what it takes to get a fish to market, fifty-fifty if I go on to wince at the high consumer toll.

The battle-weary, liniment-laced coiffure has a response to anyone who challenges the price of halibut—they recall an internet photo of a commercial fishing gunkhole buffeted past dangerously loftier seas. The cut caption: "Oh! Then you don't like the price of seafood? Past all means go get it yourself!"