(1) There is no requirement under the sablefish IFQ program for a person with freezer vessel IFQ to freeze (process) the person's sablefish harvest. In some cases, freezer vessel catch was landed unfrozen to a floating processor or shore-based processor using freezer vessel IFQ. In Table 6-3, such catch is counted as catcher vessel catch. This makes the data more comparable with 1991 to 1994 data. In Table 6-2 the catch was assigned to freezer vessels based on the type of QS/IFQ used. Thus the catcher vessel harvest reported in Table 6-2 is slightly different than that reported in Table 6-3 due to the different methodologies used.

(2) The reader is cautioned that the 1991 to 1994 harvest estimates and permit holder estimates contained herein are estimates from a "blended" data base created for this project. These estimates may not agree with other data sources. Since 1990, fish tickets do not contain all of the sablefish catch. Some EEZ catch may only be reported on NMFS's Weekly Production Reports (WPRs). The authors constructed the 1991 to 1994 sablefish files contained herein using fish ticket records for catcher vessels and WPR records for catcher processors. In doing so, the authors excluded fish ticket records from catcher processors. The reader is cautioned that fish ticket data and WPR data for a catcher processor can vary dramatically with respect to both the amount of the catch and the area of the catch. Table 6-3 excludes catcher processors because the permit holder data for these vessels was "estimated" and likely underestimated. WPR data for 1991 to 1994 did not contain permit holder information, so the authors added an "estimated" permit holder to the WPR records. The authors used a permit holder from fish tickets when fish ticket records existed for the vessel and the authors used the vessel owner as the permit holder when fish ticket data on the vessel were not available. For all of these reasons, the data in these tables should be viewed cautiously.