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Vessels have been flocking to the Sitka Sound in preparation for the sac roe herring fishery which went on two hour notice Tuesday morning. According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, no herring spawn have been observed during aerial surveys but the R/V Kestrel, which has been surveying the sound since Tuesday, has recorded sightings. On Wednesday, the Kestrel spotted large biomasses northwest of Bieli Rocks, north of Middle Island, and southwest of the Siginaka Islands. During...
Salmon returning home to Alaska hatcheries again accounted for nearly one-third of the 2021 statewide catch for commercial fishermen at 64 million fish. It was the 8th largest hatchery home-coming since 1977 and at a payout of $142 million, the salmon produced 25% of the overall value at the Alaska docks. An additional 220-thousand salmon that got their start in a hatchery also were caught in Alaska sport, personal use and subsistence fisheries. Nearly 70 million adult hatchery salmon returned...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game started performing aerial herring surveys in the Sitka Sound last week in preparation for the upcoming sac roe herring fishery. Aerial surveys are conducted by Fish and Game to search for herring spawn and, if spotted, map their location and take aerial photographs. Though no groups of herring spawn have been recorded yet, surveyors have recorded sightings of herring predators in the area. On Tuesday, 65 sea lions were spotted off of Inner Point while a...
Gotta give the Dunleavy Administration credit for being the first to try and get to the bottom of one of Alaska’s most troubling fishing issues: bycatch. The governor in November 2021 created an Alaska Bycatch Review Task Force (ABRT) “to help better understand unintended bycatch of high value fishery resources in State and federal waters.” He defined bycatch as “fish which are harvested in a fishery but are not sold or kept.” The 13-member group will issue a final report based on those better understandings in November 2022. “Once the structur...
Haines-Lynn Canal fishermen might have an opportunity to diversify if a Juneau-based fishing charter and lodge owner is right about his hunch that a viable commercial squid fishery could exist in Southeast. Richard Yamada, who's been operating fishing charters for 40 years, has been looking for ways to reduce the impacts on his business from king salmon declines. He speculates that an observed influx of magister squid in the northern inside passage might be one factor in salmon survival. About 1...
The 2022 sport fishing regulations for king salmon in Southeast Alaska and the modifications for the Petersburg and Wrangell area were released by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game earlier this month. According to the announcement, Alaska residents have a bag and possession limit of two king salmon that measure 28 inches or more in length. Resident anglers may use two rods from February 3 to March 31, 2022 and October 1 to March 31, 2023 but can only retain salmon. Non-residents have a bag...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the start of the 2022 Southeast Alaska commercial Tanner crab fishery which opened on February 11 at noon after registration for the season closed. According to the announcement, core areas will be open until February 18 at noon for a total of seven fishing days, non-core areas will be open until February 23 at noon for a total of 12 fishing days, and exploratory area will be open until March 9 at noon for a total of 26 fishing days. All three are...
The 2022 commercial Tanner crab fishery is set to open Friday at noon with this season's mature male abundance biomass predicted to be 5.81 million pounds in Registration Area A according to Joe Stratman, the lead shellfish biologist for Southeast Alaska with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That prediction comes from a 2021 survey which uses stratified sampling to estimate mature male Tanner crab abundance spanning from the Dixon Entrance to Cape Fairweather. This year's prediction is...
Frigid February fishing in Alaska features crabbing from the Panhandle to the Bering Sea, followed in March by halibut, black cod and herring. Southeast crabbers will drop pots for Tanners on Friday, and they’re expecting one of the best seasons ever. Fishery managers said they are seeing “historically high levels” of Tanners with good recruitment coming up from behind. The catch limit won’t be set until the fishery is underway but last year’s take was 1.27 million pounds (504,369 crabs), which weighed 2.5 pounds on average. Crabbers know they...
This year's mature herring biomass in the Sitka Sound is expected to be the largest ever with a forecasted 225,820 tons according to Sitka Area Management Biologist Aaron Dupuis of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The high forecast has also resulted in the highest guideline harvest level (GHL) ever set for the annual sac roe herring fishery of 45,164 tons or 20% of the sound's total mature herring biomass. Dupuis said the biggest factor impacting the forecast is the "very large" class of...
Kodiak fishermen are getting an advance price of $8.10 per pound for Tanner crab in the fishery that opened Jan. 15. High crab prices have led all other seafoods during the COVID-19 pandemic as buyers grab all they can to fill demand at buffet tables, restaurants and retail counters around the world. “Our strategy was to get a price before the season even started. It’s simply bad business to go fishing without a price,” said Peter Longrich, secretary of the 74-member Kodiak Crab Alliance Cooperative which negotiated the deal with local processo...
Wow, there is a lot of fishing going on across Alaska! Salmon is the heart of Alaska’s seafood industry but winter is when the fishing action really begins. Hundreds of boats are out on the water on the first day of each new year, beginning a predictable rhythm for the seafood industry as millions of pounds of fish begin to cross the docks around the clock at Alaska’s working waterfronts. Here’s a sampler: Starting January 1 boats drop pots and baited lines for cod, rockfish and other whitefish in the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea. Alask...
Since 1991 the weekly Fish Factor column has highlighted Alaska’s seafood industry with its annual “Picks and Pans - a no holds barred look back at some of the year’s best and worst happenings, and my choice for the year’s biggest fish story. Here are the choices for 2021, in no particular order - Most business potential – Seaweed mariculture. The market value of U.S. seaweed is pegged at $41 billion by 2031. Driving the demand is increased use in pharmaceuticals, health supplements, as a natural thickening agent and in animal feeds. Best fish...
An Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Act was introduced in Congress last week by Alaska Senators Murkowski and Sullivan that, if passed, aims to gain better understanding about causes of salmon declines, especially in the Northwest regions. The task force of up to 19 people would conduct a comprehensive review of salmon science and management in Alaska. The bill also would establish a working group specifically focused on salmon returns in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim (AYK) region of Western and...
Strong global and U.S. demand for sockeye salmon has 2021 pushed prices to near record highs and boosted fishermen’s paychecks. Both Silver Bay and Peter Pan Seafoods a few weeks ago increased their base prices to fishermen to $1.45 per pound, a 20-cent increase from the summer. Other Alaska companies are likely to follow suit. That compares to a final price in 2020 of just $1.06 “Obviously, the base price is announced earlier in the season. Now that we can see where sales are going and really have a confident look, we’re excited to celeb...
Beginning Friday, Alaska Wildlife Troopers, with the help of many organizations in Petersburg, distributed approximately 1,400 pounds of meat from sublegal moose through the burger bank program. 1,960 pounds of meat from seven moose harvested during this year's hunt were put into the Community Cold Storage earlier this year and will be given to people in need according to Sergeant Cody Litster. According to Litster, antler restrictions allow everyone to participate in the hunt as opposed to a...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A U.S. District judge has rejected a challenge by Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration to a special subsistence hunt authorized for a southeast Alaska tribe by a federal board last year. The Organized Village of Kake last year requested an emergency hunt, citing food security concerns amid the pandemic, according to court documents. A limited season of up to 60 days was granted by the Federal Subsistence Board, and the harvest was distributed to 135 households in the village, documents state. The Alaska Department of Fis...
The 2021-2022 Southeast Alaska sea cucumber season is expected to surpass the current three-year rotation's harvest record according to Whitney Crittenden, an assistant area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Ketchikan. As of November 24, 1,677,032 pounds of sea cucumber have been harvested, while the guideline harvest level (GHL) for the region stands at a record 1,872,800 pounds. This season has the highest region-wide GHL ever seen for the current rotation, de...
December 2, 1921 A rutabaga weighing 27½ pounds, was raised by D.W. Kirk of Wrangell and is on exhibit in that city. Mr. Kirk had one weighing 56 pounds, but a horse discovered it and sampled it, making it unfit for exhibition. Several 35 pound rutabagas have been raised by him. December 6, 1946 The High School Athletic Department has purchased an all-electric scoreboard with the proceeds of the Athletic Benefit Dance which netted the $450 necessary. Ten turkeys were taken away to grace Thanksgiving tables. Gill Joynt made a score of 15 out of...
The 2022 pink salmon harvest is forecasted to be in the weak range in Southeast Alaska with an estimate of 16 million fish according to a report from NOAA Fisheries and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. According to the report, the 2022 forecast is approximately half of the 10-year average harvest of 34 million pink salmon but is higher than the 8 million predicted in 2020, the last even year harvest. Southeast Alaska Pink and Chum Salmon Project Leader Andy Piston said trawl surveys...
A hearing on seafood bycatch didn’t satisfy a bipartisan group of Alaska legislators at a meeting of the House Fisheries Committee on Nov. 15. The bycatch issue came up again this summer when all Yukon River salmon fisheries were canceled due to so few returning Chinook and chums. Along with ocean and climate impacts, villagers questioned the takes by huge trawlers that catch and process fish at sea. A presentation of the committee hearing by Glenn Merrill, regional administrator at NOAA Fisheries/Alaska, showed that in the 2019 Bering Sea p...
The Clausen Museum is displaying the profiles of six Alaska Natives to mark November as Native American and Alaska Native Heritage Month. Clausen Museum Director Cindi Lagoudakis said the profiles she chose to write were of people who had some connection to Southeast Alaska and may not be well known. "We tell a lot of stories about Amy Hallingstad and Elizabeth Peratrovich, and not to take away from their importance in Alaska Native Heritage and history, but there are other people that have...
It’s a fish trifecta for Alaska’s 2021 salmon season. The fishery produced the third-highest catch, fish poundage and value on record dating back to 1975. According to preliminary harvests and values by region from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the catch of nearly 234 million salmon had a dockside value of almost $644 million, and weighed in at 858.5 million pounds. That compares to 117 million salmon harvested in 2020, valued at just over $295 million and a combined weight of 517.5 million pounds. All regions saw salmon earnings dou...
It’s hard to believe, but Dungeness crab in the Gulf of Alaska is now Alaska’s largest crab fishery – a distinction due to the collapse of stocks in the Bering Sea. Combined Dungeness catches so far from Southeast and the westward region (Kodiak, Chignik and the Alaska Peninsula) totaled over 7.5 million pounds as the last pots were being pulled at the end of October. Ranking second is golden king crab taken along the Aleutian Islands with a harvest by four boats of about 6 million pounds. For snow crab, long the Bering Sea’s most product...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game released its preliminary figures for the total harvest and value of this year’s commercial salmon fishery. 233.8 million fish were harvested statewide, amounting to 858.5 million pounds, with a total worth of $643.9 million according to the release. The number of fish and total pounds harvested this year was the third highest on record. This year’s harvest more than doubled the 116.8 million caught in 2020 and saw a 118% increase in total value from the $295.2 million recorded last year. The 2021 estimated...
