Alaska (fisherman) retirement fund.

carojae

2009-04-03 04:02:48

A.R.F. - :D

I often wonder if I'll be just as broke a fisherman when I retire as when I first started. What does the future hold?

Wouldn't it be nice if fisherman as a whole, had a common retirement plan we could contribute to and draw from when that day comes? I've heard different politians talk about the need for such a thing - nothing ever seems to develope.

Thoughts.....Comments? Salty?

Puller

2009-04-03 04:26:26

How would you capitalize such a plan? Would you require an initiation fee with a annual maintenance fee to stay current? What happens if you don't stay current? just asking?

Salty

2009-04-03 16:20:48

The greatest asset we as trollers have is the wonders of the life cruising around the ocean pulling salmon who choose to bite our lures on board our little boats where we take great care to turn them into wonderful food. Sharing that life with a person who has worked hard at a job with a good retirement plan and health care seems like a wonderful combination to me.

I have sometimes thought about the wonders of a program similar to the IFQ for halibut and blackcod for our troll fishery. The one unarguable good thing about that program is that it set a lot of those fishermen up with a great retirement. Chinook salmon with a yearly quota would be an ideal candidate. But then it would capitalize the fishery in a way that would maximize capital at the expense of both labor and initiative. It would set those of us who recently were at our peak of production up at the expense of all those just starting or soon to enter the fishery. An IFQ program similar to blackcod and halibut for troll salmon would take care of all my retirement needs but would likely create great hardship for my sons.

A while back someone suggested that the ideal group to set up a retirement program for trollers would be SPC. But I know nothing about those kind of things. I just put both my January and final settlements into the revolving loan fund. I retired from the world of jobs nearly 30 years ago and went fishing.

Isn't trolling a form of retirement? Over the last few years I have got plenty of sleep, religiously avoided tough weather, had new gadgets to play with on the boat, took my friends and wife as crew, took my relatives young sons and daughters as crew, had restaurant owners around the country rave about our salmon, got treated for a serious illness, survived getting run over by my truck three days before the July season, had 2 of my best three seasons ever financially, and spent lots of time playing with my granddaughters. But then I am a lucky guy.

Here is a picture of one of my friends who just called looking for a chance to go again this summer.

~~[attachment=0]~~Mike Turner, troller resized.jpg[/attachment]

squarehead

2009-04-04 01:57:37

I plan to troll till i die but some health Ins. would be nice.......

carojae

2009-04-05 01:56:50

Capitalize such a plan? Well, I am no expert either, but I imagine that a person would have to have so much time in the fishing industry as a paying participant; a level of payment to meet, but other than that I can't offer any details on how this should work, but I bet somebody can.

How does the public employees retirement plan go? I am not saying the government should pay for this project, but I really don't know. I do know that my father got retirement throught the pers and got a pretty good monthly check out of them until he passed on. I don't think he put that much into it but it helped take pretty good care of him (*yes, I know pers was a financial mess).

Fishing and having a great time? I really don't think charging out of the harbor at 3 AM is having fun. Getting yelled at by the hotdogs on the Deer Harbor drag - no fun. Homeshore is not for me......not in June, July or August. I love fishing but this kind of fishing is not really bliss anymore. I definitely fish for money today.

And the more I think of IFQ's, the more it rankles me. We had way more fish before that silly management idea was put into place. Just ask a Charter boater LMAO :lol: But it is true, it shut down a lot of commerce that was spawned by longline fishermen before IFQ. And now it takes weeks to catch what we all caught in 24 hours and months to catch what we caught in 2 - 24 hour openings. And all my jigging holes are useless anymore. But back to the subject.

I thought I heard Sarah Palin mention a need for a retirement plan for the states biggest private employer - fishing (during her campaign for governor). It probably wasn't her but still....

And I agree, insurance. Why is there no common source for this amongst fisherman? Seems like we could put together one heck of a pool of participants holding down the costs for such a program.

squarehead

2009-04-05 02:30:11

right on the money with the IFQs gotta believe that gear restrictions and the short opening would have been a better way to pass on the fishery to the next generation.

the coop has a pretty good sized group of guys that might like to ge some heath INS. maybe we could ask the guys that can read and right pretty good to have a look into setting some thing up, I for one would sign up in a hot minute!