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There’s much more to Alaska herring than roe and bait. To prove that point, nearly 40 of Seattle’s finest restaurants and retailers will celebrate Northwest Herring Week as a way to re-introduce the tasty, health fish to the dining scene. “There’s more herring eaten all over the world than you can imagine. Some years there’s as much as four million tons harvested in the world. You can have a year when the herring fishery is as large as the whole Bering Sea pollock fishery,” said Bruce Schactler of Kodiak, a longtime fisherman and director of...
Boaters from Homer to the Mat-Su valley can help protect salmon and other aquatic creatures and get discounts from popular businesses by doing so. A pilot program launched this spring is an offshoot of Cook Inletkeeper’s Clean Boating program that began in the Valley five years ago. “It all started with oil and gas pollution in Big Lake,” said Heather Leba, director of the group’s Clean Boating Discount program.” The Department of Environmental Conservation was doing water quality testing in 2006 and they determined that Big Lake was an “impai...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced that the commercial golden king crab fishery in the Mid-Chatham Strait and Southern Areas will close at 12:00 noon, Wednesday, June 29, 2016. These areas are being closed in response to continued poor fishery performance. These declines are similar to the time period of the early to mid-1990s when the department routinely closed fishing areas before harvest reached preseason guideline harvest levels (GHL). While the fishery dependent data used to manage golden king crab since 2000 are more...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the commercial spring troll fishery in the Ketchikan Area (101-29) will open to trolling from 12:01 a.m., June 9 through 11:59 p.m., June 12. Tebenkof Bay (109-62) will open to trolling from 12:01 a.m., June 11 through 11:59 p.m., June 11....
The NOAA Fisheries Entanglement Response Network continues efforts to remove gear from a humpback whale that became entangled in anchor line in Seymour Canal a week ago, on June 1. On June 4, NOAA-led responders attached a satellite tag to the rope trailing the whale as it swam in Gastineau Channel and has been closely monitoring the whale's movements using the tag information and sightings reports. NOAA Fisheries Entanglement Response Network members assessed the whale in Tenakee Inlet on June...
Alaskan fishermen have raised the bar for big fishing boats with the F/V Northern Leader of Kodiak, and Discovery Canada producers of the popular “Mighty Ships” programs have taken notice. Mighty Ships producers search for unique ships around the world and its seven year run has featured a wide range of vessels including cruise ships, aircraft carriers, cargo ships, dredgers and more. The programs focus heavily on operational capabilities and technical aspects of the ships and also make use of computer-generated animation to show und...
The budget impasse with Alaska legislators is wreaking havoc on salmon fisheries across the state, and the industry is bracing for the possibility of a complete shutdown in some regions. If lawmakers can’t agree on a budget by June 1, all state workers will be on notice for layoffs starting July 1. That includes 750 full-time and seasonal workers in the commercial fisheries division, many of whom are the boots on the ground for salmon management. “The word that comes to my mind is catastrophic,” said Scott Kelley, director of the state comme...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Wildlife Conservation in Petersburg reminds the public that deer fawns should not be handled, picked up, or otherwise disturbed. The first fawns of the season are being reported and sightings will increase over the next few weeks. Several consecutive mild winters have resulted in high deer survival in and around Petersburg and Game Management Unit 3 in general. As a result, wildlife managers in the region expect a high number of fawns this season. Although a fawn may appear to be abandoned or...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Tuesday that modified king salmon sport fishing regulations that have been in effect for Wrangell and Petersburg’s District 8 are rescinded. As of this morning, the increased sport fishing opportunity for the district has come to an end, bringing regulations back in line with those of the wider Southeast region. Under the regulations, an Alaska resident permit-holder can bag and possess a limit of three king salmon, of 28 inches or greater in length. Nonresidents are limited to one king s...
Place/Weight/Name 1 37.6 Mickey Knight 2 37.2 Dick Eide 3 35.9 Cody Wegener 4 35.6 Kimber Brown 5 33.5 Wes Malcom 6 32.6 Stephanie Thynes 7 32 Harry Rogers 8 31.6 Jennifer Thynes 9 31.5 Carlos Martinez 10 31.4 David Warner 11 30.3 Derek Lopez 12 30 Annette Olson 13 29.5 Liz Peterson 14 29.4 Dennis O’Neil 15 29.2 Bill Olson 16 28.6 Scott Hursey 17 28.4 Christopher Josey 18 28.2 Rob Swanson 19 27.8 Rodney Littleton 20 27.5 Derek Knudsen 21 27.1 Mattias Volk 22 26 Lavern Beier 23 25.4 Kevin Volk 24 25.2 Paul Marnane 25 25.0 Holli Flint 26 24.5 D... Full story
Alaska’s salmon season officially got underway on May 16 with the arrival of thousands of sockeye and king salmon at the Copper River near Cordova, and high prices were the talk of the town. The first opener produced a catch of 25,000 sockeye and about 1,500 kings. “It was pretty slow to start. Small fish, not too many of them,” said Kelsey Appleton with Cordova District Fishermen United. Following a trend seen over the past couple of years across Alaska, the salmon were healthy but much smaller. Weights taken on several hundred samples after...
Alaska’s salmon season has gotten underway with lots of optimism, a far cry from the bleak feelings of a year ago. Last year’s fishery was blown asunder by a perfect storm of depressed currencies, salmon backlogs and global markets awash with farmed fish. Prices to fishermen fell by nearly 41 percent between 2013 and 2015, years which produced the two largest Alaska salmon harvest volumes on record. But in the past six months, those trends have turned around. “Based on current market conditions and harvest expectations, it appears proba...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced last week limits for the year’s lingcod sport fishing season, which for Southeast Alaska began on Monday. Running through to Nov. 30, licensed residents will be limited to bagging one lingcod a day, with two in possession, and no size limitation. During the season nonresident anglers will likewise have a bag limit of one per day, though with only one in possession. In addition, nonresidents may only keep lingcod which are between 30 and 45 inches or else are 55 inches or greater in length. N...
Alaska salmon fishermen can get rebates on pingers aimed at keeping baleen whales away from their gear. The six inch, battery operated tubes are tied into fishing nets and transmit animal-specific signals every five seconds to alert the animals to keep their distance. “Pingers can be really helpful to alert the whales to something in front of them so you have less entanglements,” said Kathy Hansen, director of the Southeast Alaska Fisheries Alliance. SEAFA received a $25,000 Hollings Grant from the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation to fund t...
AMSEA will offer a 10-hour Fishing Vessel Drill Conductor Refresher workshop on Monday, May 23, from 8:00 am – 7:00 pm at the Tides Inn. This is for commercial fishermen that have previously completed a Fishing Vessel Drill Conductor workshop and want to update their skills. Register online at www.amsea.org or call (907) 747-3287....
AMSEA will offer its “Upright & Watertight: Vessel Stability Awareness” workshop Tuesday, May 24 from 8:00 am – 2:00 pm at the Tides Inn. Register online atwww.amsea.org or call (907) 747-3287....
In the face of Alaska’s multi-billion dollar budget shortfalls, state policy makers are putting the onus on fishermen to cover the costs of going fishing. “One of the sources we have to offset general fund decreases is increased test fishing. We don’t like to catch fish or crab or anything just to raise money, but in this climate we’re having to look at that long and hard,” said Scott Kelley, director of the Commercial Fisheries for the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game. Test fishing is typically done by department chartered vessels to assess st...
In a news brief released April 28, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced additional sport fishing opportunities for king salmon would be available to Wrangell and Petersburg’s District 8. Sport fishing for king salmon in the district may be conducted with the use of two rods per angler, with no more than six lines fished from a vessel. Resident anglers have a bag limit of three king salmon 28 inches or greater in length, with a limit of six in possession. Nonresidents have a bag and possession limit of two, up to six for the year. Ch...
Sitka — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has announced the results from the 2016 Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery and spawn observations. This season the target harvest level was set at 14,741. The final harvest was 9,758 tons with overall mature roe recovery of 10.7% based on fish ticket information. The harvest and roe recovery by date was as follows: There were two spawning events in the Sitka Sound area this season. The first spawn occurred from March 18 until March 28. The total shoreline mapped with spawn during this initial e...
Cuts affecting Alaska’s fisheries will be spread across all regions and species, depending on the final budget that is approved by state legislators. As it stands now, the total commercial fisheries budget for FY 2017 from all state and federal funding sources is about $64 million, a drop of $10 million over two years. “With cuts of that magnitude, everything is on the table,” said Scott Kelley, director of the Commercial Fisheries Division at the Dept. of Fish and Game. Last year 109 fishery projects were axed, and another 65 are on the cut l...
Marine boat anglers returning to ports where and when on-site ADF&G creel surveys are conducted will be prohibited from filleting, mutilating, and de-heading sport caught lingcod, nonpelagic rockfish, and king and coho salmon at-sea. Marine boat anglers returning to any port on the road system of the communities listed below, during the times designated, may not fillet, mutilate, or de-head these fish until the fish have been brought to shore and offloaded, unless the fish have been consumed or preserved on board: Petersburg: 12:01 a.m....
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game earlier this month released this year’s regulations regarding sport and commercial King salmon regulations. The resident bag and possession limit is three King salmon, 28 inches or greater and the non-resident limit is one King, 28 inches or greater except during May and June when non-residents are allowed two King’s 28 inches or greater. The non-resident annual limit is six Kings at those same length restrictions. Those regulations are in effect from 12:01 a.m. April 12, 2016 through 11:59 p.m. May 1,...
