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With salmon fisheries going on every summer all across Alaska, you might wonder why so much attention is focused on Bristol Bay. The answer can be summed up in two words: sockeye salmon. Bristol Bay is home to the largest red salmon runs in the world and sockeye is Alaska’s most valuable salmon fishery by far. In most years, well over one-third of Alaska’s total earnings from salmon fishing stem from Bristol Bay. Whereas other fishing regions like Copper River, Cook Inlet, Kodiak, Southeast and the Alaska Peninsula might get sockeye cat...
Salmon takes center stage in Alaska every summer, but many more fisheries also are going on all across the state. The world’s biggest sockeye salmon run is expected to surge into Bristol Bay any day, where a catch of about 17 million reds is projected. Elsewhere, the annual summer troll fishery in Southeast Alaska kicks off on July first with a target of just over 166,000 Chinook salmon. Lots of crab fisheries are underway each summer— Dungeness fishing began on June 15 in Southeast where a harvest of 2.25 million pounds is expected. The reg...
Uncertainty best sums up the mood as fishermen and processors await the world’s biggest sockeye salmon run at Bristol Bay. In fact, it’s being called the riskiest season in recent memory in the 2014 Sockeye Market Analysis, a biannual report done by the McDowell Group for the fishermen-run Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association. As presaged by buyer pushback at seafood trade shows earlier this year at Boston and Brussels, for the first time since 2010 the starting price for the first sockeyes from Copper River took a $0.50/lb dip...
You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again: The seafood industry is Alaska’s largest private employer, putting more people to work than mining, oil/gas, timber and tourism combined. The annual revenue the seafood sector contributes to State coffers is second only to Big Oil. So where does the seafood industry rank for the major candidates running for Alaska Governor and the US Senate? Here’s what a thorough look at each of their campaign websites reveals, starting with the race for Governor (all in alphabetical order)— Byron Mallott (...
Salmon prices at wholesale show marked seasonal variations for both wild and farmed fish. It’s a pattern that has been tracked for decades by Urner Barry, the nation’s oldest commodity market watcher in business since 1895. The prices tend to decline through June, July, August and September and they begin rising again from November through the following April or May. Two things drive the well-established pattern, said market expert John Sackton who publishes Seafood.com, an Urner-Barry partner. “There’s a growth cycle for farmed salmon when th...
If genetically modified salmon gets a green light by the federal government, it will be labeled as such if US Senators on both sides of the aisle have their way. The Senate Appropriations Committee last week passed the bipartisan Murkowski-Begich amendment requiring that consumers be advised of what they are buying. During testimony, Senator Murkowski questioned if the so called Frankenfish can even be called a real salmon. “This takes a transgenic Atlantic salmon egg, which has genes from an ocean pout that is somewhat akin to an eel, and it c...
KETCHIKAN (AP) — The operator of a state-owned salmon hatchery near Petersburg says it is moving forward with plans to rebuild the portion of the facility destroyed by fire in March. The Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association operates the Crystal Lake Hatchery, whose fish-incubation building burned in the blaze. The association's operations manager Bret Hiatt told the Greater Ketchikan Chamber Of Commerce on Wednesday that the coho salmon release was lost in the fire and so was a large portion of king salmon, the Ketchikan Daily Ne...
Salmon season is just getting underway, but seafood companies are still selling last summer’s record catch of 226 million pink salmon - and it has prompted lots of creative thinking. “The challenge is to market all this fish and still maintain the value,” said Tyson Fick, communications director for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute (ASMI), the state’s lone marketing arm. “It wouldn’t be any problem for the producers just to flood the market, and then we would see a tremendous downward pressure in years to come. More so, we see this as...
The 33rd Annual Petersburg Chamber of Commerce King Salmon Derby gets underway this Friday at 7 a.m. The derby continues through the Memorial Day Weekend and ends Monday at 5 p.m. Two tagged fish will hopefully be available for anglers this year. Derby Committee member Doug Welde and volunteers were still seeking two Kings to tag at press time Thursday morning. One tagged fish could bring a derby angler a chance at $5,000 from Hammer and Wikan and the other could garner a $10,000 prize sponsored by Alaska Marine Lines and the Petersburg... Full story
Trollers in Southeast Alaska provide fresh king salmon nearly year round, but the runs of reds and kings to the Copper River mark the “official start” of Alaska’s salmon season. On May 15 the fleet of more than 570 fishermen set out their nets on a beautiful day for the first 12 hour opener amidst the usual hype for the first fish. “We’ve got a lot of people riding around in the sky checking out the conditions, and a lot of people are getting ready to move the fish to other places for First Fish celebrations,” said Kim Ryals, executive d...
JUNEAU (AP) — The Native regional corporation for southeast Alaska has reported losses of $35 million, with blame going to a subsidiary in Hawaii. CoastAlaska reports Juneau-based Sealaska is reporting the net loss for 2013. Sealaska says 75 percent of the loss was from a construction company based in Hawaii, which had underestimated two federal projects. The managers of the subsidiary have been fired, and it is no longer bidding on similar projects. The other losses were related to efforts to lobby Congress to transfer timber lands in the T...
The debate over which sector – commercial or recreational fishing – provides the bigger economic punch can finally be put to rest. The annual ‘Fisheries Economics of the US’ report by the Dept. of Commerce shows once and for all that in terms of values, jobs, sales and incomes the commercial sector far outscores recreational fishing. A breakdown of the extensive report by market analyst John Sackton shows that in 2012, commercial fishing had $140 billion in sales compared to $58 billion for sport fishing. And for the value contributed to the...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — King salmon fishermen in much of Alaska are facing dismal catch predictions this summer but that's not the case in southeast Alaska. The Juneau Empire reports high returns last year and high escapement projects in rivers outside Alaska are making commercial and sport fishermen optimistic about 2014. King salmon abundance estimates along the Panhandle have more than doubled from last year. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says 439,400 kings can be caught this year. That compares to 266,800 in 2012 and just 176,000 l...
The basic laws of supply and demand are resulting in a nice pay day for Alaska halibut and sablefish harvesters. Prices for both fish are up by more than a dollar a pound compared to the same time last year. Fresh halibut has been moving smoothly and demand is steady since the fishery opened in early March, said a major Kodiak buyer, where dock prices were reported at $6 a pound for ten to 20 pounders, $6.25 for halibut weighing 20 to 40 pounds, and $6.50 for “40 ups.” At Homer and in Southeast Alaska, halibut prices have yet to drop below six...
Coast Guard commercial fishing vessel examiners will be conducting voluntary dockside examinations from 1:00 Wednesday May 14 through 1:00 Sunday, May 18. Anyone interested in receiving a dockside examination should sign-up at the Petersburg harbormasters office or call Scott Wilwert at 907-957-0152. Exams take about an hour and help foster public awareness of fishing vessel safety, regulations and safety carriage requirements....
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game released a final update of the Sitka Herring Sac Roe fishery results. Fisherman netted 16,976 tons of herring, down from preliminary projections but still exceeding the guideline harvest by 643 tons. The March 20 season opener saw the most herring coming up in nets at 5,031 tons. The total mature roe was recorded at 12.4 percent. The baseline market price for roe is 10 percent. Processors were offering around $150 per ton this year, down from $780 last year. Fish and Game Area Management Biologist Dave...
The Southeast Soil and Water Conservation District (SE SWCD) will be hosting a comprehensive three day workshop in Kake May 1-3. The program will teach best management practices to beginning oyster farmers. The workshop curriculum will consist of lectures, labs, and hands-on field operations on working oyster farms. The workshop is open to the public and the District is anticipating participation from shellfish farmers in Kake, Hoonah, and Angoon. Participants will learn from experts about nearly every aspect of oyster farming in Southeast...
Kodiak’s roe herring fishery began on April 15 with little notice and rumors of fire sale prices. The fleet of 22 seiners was down a bit; they are competing for a harvest of 5,800 short tons, similar to the past five years. No gillnetters had signed up for the herring fishery. Test fishing from the east side of the island were showing nice roe counts, said James Jackson, herring manager at ADF&G in Kodiak. “We are fishing a predominantly older age class of mostly nine year olds and it looks like we are hitting those fish right now. They are...
Alaska salmon permits in many fisheries have tripled in value since 2002 and the upward trend continues. An overview of April listings by four brokers shows that Bristol Bay drift net permits are valued at nearly $134,000 by the State, and listed for sale at $150,000 to $170,000. That compares to $90,000 this past January. At Southeast Alaska, seine permits are the priciest in the state at over $300,000. That’s an increase of fifty grand since January. The asking price for Prince William Sound seine cards exceeds $200,000 compared to the $...
Alaska's total salmon catch for 2014 is projected to be down by almost half of last year's record haul. State fishery managers are calling for an all species harvest of just under 133 million salmon, a 47% drop from last year's whopping 283 million fish. A pink catch of 95 million pushed the record last year and it is pinks that will bring the numbers down this summer. Pink salmon run in on/off year cycles and this year the catch is pegged at about 75 million, a 67% decrease from last summer's 2...
Southern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Production Manger Bill Gass said he’s impressed by how fast State officials are moving forward with plans to reconstruct Petersburg’s Crystal Lake Hatchery incubation facility that was destroyed by a fire last month. “It’s not a matter of deciding to pay it or not,” Gass said. “Before an expenditure of that magnitude happens or not they (State officials) need to get engineers involved, quotes from contractors, a fully functional design that would go out to bid… We’re the contracted operators but t...
Kodiak seiners will be scooping up pollock in their nets starting this week. You heard right. Seiners have a chance to test the waters to determine if a directed pollock fishery makes sense for that type of gear in the Gulf. Except for a small jig fishery, the only pollock fishery operating in state waters (out to three miles) is at Prince William Sound where trawlers this year have an 8.5 million pound catch. “The initial seine opportunity will just run from April 11 through June 8 so we don’t overlap with salmon season. And during that tim...
Nine names are vying for three seats on the state Board of Fisheries, including six newcomers. That gives Governor Parnell the unique opportunity to replace a majority of the seven-member Fish Board, should he choose to do so, and should the Alaska legislature go along with it - an unlikely scenario. It took filing a Freedom of Information request and a 10 day wait to get the names of the Fish Board hopefuls, said veteran legislative watch dog Bob Tkacz in his weekly Laws for the Sea. They include the three incumbents - John Jensen of...
