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Deadliest Catch/fishing quotas

Manch.

All-ACC
Sep 25, 2004
12,810
678
853
I understand how the government sets yearly quotas on number of pounds that can be caught during the fishing season, to protect the species population.

The part I don't understand and even with Google, I have yet really been able to find out a correct answer on what the quota is for each boat.

In the 2014 fishing season, the boat, the Wizard lost half of his quota to his former business partner, and was only allowed to catch about 100K lbs. of the king crab. I saw that the Northwestern caught their quota of 227K lbs. Some of the other boats were catching considerably less.

How does each boat get their quota number? Do they pay a licensing fee or bid, for example, the higher the fee/bid, the more they can catch? Do they (Fish and Game or whatever state/fed department gives out the fishing license/quotas) take the government's quota number and then divide that total weight by the total number of licenses awarded? I see that some boats will "buy" quotas/or a certain percentage of the quota off of other boats that can't reach their respective quota.
 
Loved the part about the Feds forcing the small boats out of competition and giving all of the bigger ones the larger quotas. Kind of like they do with oil and everything else. No wonder I can't afford king crab either...
 
The thing with the Wizard was less to do with the Gov't and more to do with who had the crab to begin with. If I understood it all correctly the Wizard was leasing the quota from a 3rd party. So let's just say I have a quota of 20,000 pounds but I don't want to deal with actually fishing for that quota. I sell that quota to the Wizard at x dollars per pound. He has the capacity to catch it and make more than he could by just coming in to port and I make less than I would if I actually fished it but I don't have to do any work to make some money.

The 3rd party told the Wizard he wasn't selling/sharing his quota this year, he was going with his former business partner. It was likely that they were all buddies and the dude with the quota sided up with the other buddy.
 
I don't know how it works, but last years quota must have been higher than normal, because I was buying it from Costco for $16.99 a pound, and I've never seen it that cheap.
 
I'm guessing that Keith just assumed he was going to get the quota, and got blindsided, and it was too late to do anything about it. I'm sure Keith will do his own bidding next year.
 
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