"Albacore are caught in the North Pacific by U.S. longline vessels based in Hawaii and California. The Hawaii-based part of the fleet is the larger of the two components. The longline fleet operates in a wide region of the eastern and central Pacific between the equator and waters of the North Pacific Transition Zone (Figures 1-2). Albacore are not targeted by the fishery. However, they are an important component of the catch on longline trips using shallow-set gear directed at swordfish or gear deployed deeper in the water column, largely for bigeye tuna. In 2007, there were 130 U.S. longliners active in the fishery, including 129 in Hawaii and a single vessel in California. The total fleet size has remained fairly stable over the past several years (Table 1). The nominal effort by the U.S. fleet was about 40.3 million hooks in 2007, the highest recorded to date. Hawaii-based vessels accounted for nearly all of the effort"--Page [1].

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