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No, the real issue is not about the "charter fleet" catching fish. Sport fishermen are catching fish, using the services of a U.S Coast Guard-licensed captain (who must possess a state sportfish business owner/guide license, among many other credentials), to access the public resource. These sport fishermen follow the Alaska Department of Fish and Game sportfishing regulations while fishing. The licensed vessel provides the means for access. Without sport fishermen, there would be no "charter" businesses. The real issue is quite simple; both the commercial and the sport fisherman (not the charter vessels) are harvesting the same public resource, and the commercial folks don't like that, period. You may muddy the waters all you want, but that is what the real issue boils down to, plain and simple.

The commercial fishing industry's basic strategy is to control and limit sportfishing activity. Why? They want to maintain their current stranglehold on 90 percent of this public resource, because they think they own it. They think it is theirs. They think they are entitled to keep it because they've had it, unchallenged, for so long. Well, the sportfishing demand is increasing. The state is promoting tourism, and a bigger sport share of the public resource is now needed (and entitled under both state and federal law.) The commercial industry, however, in wanting to maintain their stranglehold on the resource, devised a plan to "end-run" around sportfish regulations by controlling sport fish access. Their method to achieve this "commercial control" over the sport fisheries was the halibut charter IFQ proposal. They felt that if they can keep sport fishermen from accessing the resource (by hog-tying sportfish licensed vessels under "commercial" IFQ regulations), then the sport demand will not rise, and they can maintain their control and the lions' share. This was a clever (devious?) idea, but ultimately faulty thinking.

The IFQ was a good idea if you were a commercial fisherman, bad idea if you're a sport fisherman and even worse if you are a sportfish business owner or guide. The IFQ program amounted to a free giveaway of a public resource, becoming a huge financial windfall to some (apparently greed was the motivating factor) and zero to many others, who may be forced to shut down. The real loser in this program would be the average sport fishermen. It is their resource, but they would now have reduced access to it because of the decrease in qualified licensed vessels. And those vessels left would have charged extra for the sportfish caught, which is otherwise free if you sportfish by any other access method. In other words, if you as a sports fisherman don't own a boat or know a friend who does and instead choose to hire a vessel and guide, you would now pay extra for your sport-caught fish, because either the guide would have to buy the IFQs to have them available to you, and would pass this cost along. Or they would command a higher price because fewer boats (those holding the free IFQs) are handling a greater demand. Think about that, and how the vessel owner would feel when telling you that. It would be like shooting themselves in the foot. How long do you think any sportfishing business would last when the client realizes they now have to pay extra for their otherwise free sport-caught fish? Also, sportfishing regulations prohibit the buying or selling of sport caught fish, so automatically, this puts both the guide and the sport fisherman in an unlawful position, according to sportfish regulations. There were many more problems with the IFQ program; I have barely scratched the surface here, but I think you get the picture.

The halibut charter IFQ was not a good plan. I am happy with its demise. It's in the trash where it belongs.

• Juneau resident Tom Dawson is a state-licensed sportfish business owner and guide.