Limited Entry Fixed Gear Follow On Actions

The Council began its second review of the Limited Entry Fixed Gear (LEFG) permit stacking program (i.e., primary tier fishery) in September 2020. In June 2022, the Council completed its review with adoption of the final report, including research and data needs and recommendation for program changes.

In March 2023, under Workload and New Management Measure Priorities, the Council prioritized a series of potential management measures off the groundfish workload list related to the LEFG program and gear marking and other entanglement risk reduction measures for vessels that operate under the Groundfish Fishery Management Plan (FMP) that use pot and longline gear.

In June 2023, the Council considered those management measures and provided guidance on the development of a range of alternatives for these measures. The Council also recommended that these items be split into two packages: 1) fixed gear marking and entanglement risk reduction, and 2) LEFG follow-on actions.  The Council took final action on the fixed gear marking and entanglement risk reduction in June 2024 and the associated regulations are anticipated to be in place by the start of 2026.

In September 2023, the Council adopted a purpose and need and range of alternatives for this action.  The alternatives included:

• Changes to gear endorsements for all LEFG permits to increase flexibility
• Removal of base permit designation
• Removal of start and end times of the tier season from regulation
• Requirement for permit price reporting for all LEFG permits
• Development of a cost recovery program for the LEFG primary tier fishery.

The Council selected a preliminary preferred alternative in March 2025 for each of the action items (see March 2025 Decision Summary Document) and gave guidance to staff to bring back edits to the groundfish FMP that addressed outdated information related to Amendment 6, but maintains the Council policy of providing more opportunity to limited entry participants compared to open access participants.

The Council adopted the following as the final preferred alternative in June 2025:

Gear Endorsements: Alternative 3 with suboption a, Create a single limited entry non-trawl endorsed permit. Vessels registered to a permit with this endorsement would be permitted to use any legal non-trawl groundfish gear, with the exception of entangling nets, to harvest their quota.

Base Permit Designation: Alternative 1, Remove the base permit designation and associated regulations at 50 CFR 660.25(b)(3)(iii)(C).

Removal of Start/End Time: Alternative 1, Remove the start and end times (i.e., hours of the day) in groundfish regulations for the dates on which the sablefish primary season opens and closes.

Cost Recovery: Alternative 1, suboption a: Develop a cost recovery program for the limited entry fixed gear tier program in which the vessel owner or authorized representative pays the cost recovery fee.

The Council elected to take no action on permit price reporting and therefore no permit price information for LEFG endorsed permit will be collected.

Additionally, the Council adopted the proposed FMP amendment as shown in Agenda Item E.2.a, Supplemental Attachment 2, June 2025.