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Kids and their folks are encouraged to gear up this weekend for the seventh annual "Family Fishing Day" at Pats Lake midday Saturday. Put on cooperatively by the Forest Service, Alaska Department of Fish and Game and the Stikine Sportsmen Association, the annual gathering takes advantage of special regulations geared toward young anglers. During the third and fourth weekends of June each year, children aged 15 and under are allowed to use bait while trout fishing in Pats Lake. The usual size...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – A Juneau man could face criminal charges after one of his wolf traps mortally wounded a black bear cub, Alaska State Troopers said. A group of hikers found the cub severely injured near the Ready Bouillon Creek in late May after it stepped into the trap which was illegally left out on Douglas Island, the Juneau Empire reported . The snare caught the cub around both hind legs and cut the bear almost all the way to the bone, said Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game determined that the c...
Legislative session has ended, and now that I’m back in the district, I’d like to give you a brief overview of this year’s legislative actions that will impact Wrangell. As your state representative, I sponsored and passed three bills – “Commercial Fishing Loans,” “Mari-culture Revolving Loan Fund,” and “Dive Fishery Assessments” – that will support and enhance our fishing and mari-culture industries. HB 128, “Shellfish Enhancement Projects” was a fourth mari-culture industry related bill. It passed the House 37-2 and made it through Senate Fi...
Districts 5, 6, 10 and most of 7 will soon reopen to sport fishermen for king salmon, according to emergency regulations put in place earlier this spring. Chinook harvest opportunity has already opened in hatchery areas at Anita Bay, Blind Slough and Petersburg's City Creek, opening up last Friday. On June 15 the next wave of openings will take effect, following a wide scale closure to the fishery at the start of April. Most of the marine waters in the Petersburg-Wrangell area will reopen later...
Forces are aligned for a nice pay day for Alaska’s salmon fishermen. There is no backlog from last season in cold storages, a lower harvest forecast is boosting demand, prices for competing farmed salmon have remained high all year, and a devalued U.S. dollar makes Alaska salmon more appealing to foreign customers. “Over the past year the dollar has weakened 11 percent against the euro, 9 percent against the British pound, 5 percent against the Japanese yen, and 7 percent against the Chinese yuan. That makes Alaska salmon and other seafood mor...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced on Friday it would begin to allow subsistence and personal use salmon permit participants to access their permits online. Online availability was established as a result of user feedback, with the intention of streamlining and simplifying the permitting process. A single, regionwide permit has been created that will allow bearers the opportunity to harvest salmon through the waters of Southeast Alaska and Yakutat. Permits are still free, available online at www.adfg.alaska.gov/store/. Permit...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Tuesday some sport fishing opportunity for hatchery-produced king salmon will soon start in areas near Petersburg and Wrangell. From June 1 - July 31 several terminal harvest areas will be open to sport fishermen. In the Wrangell Narrows and Blind Slough THA, bag and possession limits for residents and nonresidents alike will be limited to two kings at least 28 inches or greater in length, and two kings less than 28 inches long. The area is that...
Alaska’s 2018 salmon season officially gets underway this week with the first 12-hour opener on May 17 for sockeyes and kings returning to the Copper River. The catch there this year calls for 19,000 kings and 942,000 sockeye salmon targeted by a fleet of more than 500 drift gillnetters. Here’s a primer of how fishery managers project the rest of Alaska’s salmon season may play out: Statewide, the 2018 salmon harvest is projected at 149 million fish, down 34 percent from the 2017 take of 226 million salmon. The shortfall this season stems...
May 2, 1918 Hon. P.C. McCormack is today circulating a petition to the Postmaster General that the Humboldt Steamship Company be awarded a mail contract. Considering that the present mail service is so very irregular it is earnestly hoped that the steamer Humboldt will be added to the small list of vessels carrying mail between Seattle and Alaska. The large number of cablegrams sent from Wrangell each week at a heavy expense would be reduced more than half if Wrangell had a regular mail service. April 30, 1943 Edmonton Brig. Gen. O’Conner, h...
A shuffle in some funding leaves Alaska’s commercial fisheries division in good shape to manage the resources and target important projects across the state. At first glance, the $69 million operating budget for FY19 appears to be down slightly from last year’s $72.3 million but that’s not the case. “Most of that difference is a sort of ‘cleanup’ in authority we no longer had funding for, such as the Alaska Sustainable Salmon Fund, test fishing and some interagency items. The rest is due to $1.1 million shortfall in Commercial Fisheries E...
The Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game has mapped 32 nautical miles of herring spawn through April 27, including 1.0 nmi of active spawn in Salisbury Sound. Spawn deposition surveys were conducted on April 7-11 and on April 24-25. Final results from this year’s stock assessment will not be available until November 2018, however, some general information can be derived from the data collected to date. Nearly all spawning this year occurred along shorelines of Kruzof Island, Hayward Strait, and the Siginaka Islands. Very little spawning was observed i...
The Federal Subsistence Board announced on Monday it will be closing its Chinook salmon subsistence fishery in the Stikine River this year due to low expected returns. Under the authority delegated him by the board, Ranger Bob Dalrymple of Wrangell's Forest Service district made the decision to close down the fishery. Preseason forecasts made by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game informed the decision, with 6,900 king salmon greater than 28 inches in length expected to return. Management...
April 18, 1918: There was a special meeting of the town council Tuesday night. All business for the past year as nearly as possible was cleared up. The newly elected councilmen who qualified for office and were seated were F. E. Gingrass, E. A. Lindman, Elmer F. Carlstrom. Before naming the committees Mayor Matheson made a neat little speech, which received hearty applause. April 16, 1943: Show prices in Wrangell have not advanced Fred G. Cunningham, Coliseum theatre manager would like it made known. In an advertisement last week advanced price...
The state Department of Fish and Game has announced its 2018 preseason estimates for Chinook salmon, and its all-gear harvest limit for Southeast Alaska under provisions of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. In its release last week, the department set the year’s limit at 130,000 “treaty fish,” nearly 80,000 fish lower than the preseason limit available in 2017. This also includes a 10-percent reduction in response to conservation needs for the king salmon stocks in Southeast, northern British Columbia, and their transboundary rivers. The annual all-g...
The Wrangell Chamber of Commerce announced last Friday it had finalized details for a coho salmon derby for the late summer, taking the place of its annual king salmon tournament it recently canceled. Set to be the 66th annual derby this year, due to emergency measures taken by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game closing king salmon to sport fishing in virtually all Southeast waters, the Chamber's derby committee thought it appropriate to cancel the event. In its stead, members resurrected a...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced late last week the extent of its expected king salmon sport fishing restrictions for this season. The region wide closure to retention of Chinook began on Sunday, April 1, to last through the first half of the summer for some waters. Citing a poor preseason forecast, ADFG has decided to close the majority of marine waters within the Petersburg-Wrangell area, not only in District 8 but also in 6, 7 and 10. (see map) The lengthiest closure will focu...
The Chamber of Commerce’s annual king salmon derby has been cancelled, it announced last week, following emergency management orders issued by the Department of Fish and Game (see king salmon story). A tradition for over 60 years, initially the month-long fishing derby was to be pared down to weekends this year, given restrictions ADFG had at first countenanced that would have centered around the Stikine River’s mouth in District 8. The eventual orders released last Thursday were far more expansive, encompassing nearly all inner waters in South...
Alaska is expecting a reduced salmon harvest this year, setting up a trifecta of falling fish revenues for Alaska fishermen, coastal communities and state coffers. Coming on the heels of an 80 percent crash of cod stocks in the Gulf of Alaska and a 10 percent decline in halibut catches, state fishery managers are projecting a 2018 salmon harvest at 149 million fish, down 34 percent from last season. The shortfall stems from lower forecasts for returning pink salmon. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is forecasting a humpie harvest of just...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said it has been overestimating how many Chinook and sockeye salmon make it up the Taku River. Department officials said the statistical bias is being corrected by new state-of-the-art studies, the Juneau Empire reported Sunday. The department said it had been overestimating the salmon numbers by 30 to 40 percent. The estimates were conducted using a decades-old “mark-recapture” system. Department coordinator Ed Jones said seal predation and the old system have caused much of the p...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Thursday the extent of its king salmon sport fishing restrictions this season. Citing a poor preseason forecast, the department has decided to close the majority of marine waters within the Petersburg-Wrangell area, not only in District 8 but also in 6, 7 and 10. (See map) In the waters adjacent to the Stikine River, which include District 8 and a portion of the Back Channel in District 7, the retention of king salmon will be prohibited starting...
KENAI, Alaska (AP) – Sport-fishing license sales dropped in Alaska last year, despite the state Department of Fish and Game recording an increase in revenue from license sales. Division of Sportfish Director Tom Brookover said Tuesday that the department was expecting the decline in sales because fees rose. Brookover said resident license sales fell by a much higher percentage than nonresident license sales. Resident anglers bought 162,500 licenses in 2017, about 20 percent fewer than about 203,000 licenses in 2016, Brookover said. The Legislat...
Late last week the Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued a group announcement regarding expected changes for sport fishermen in Southeast this year. In the Petersburg and Wrangell areas, the marine waters of District 8 are going to be closed to the retention of King Salmon between May 1 and July 15. An exception will be made for the area immediately adjacent to Petersburg’s City Creek, which will be open to King Salmon fishing from June 1 to July 31 to target 300 hatchery salmon expected to return to the area. The closure is being taken t...
In a press release issued last Thursday the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reminded hunters the seasons for Sitka black-tailed deer are closed, and that they should by now be submitting harvest reports. In Wrangell’s Unit 3 remainder area, the season concluded November 30. On the mainland in Unit 1B just to its east, the season wrapped up December 31. Preliminary statistics for the sectors’ 2017 totals are as yet unavailable, but the year prior 1,193 hunters bagged 903 bucks or just over 0.75 per hunter. All hunters who obtained deer har...
Millennials are now the nation’s “peak spenders” and they are gravitating towards healthier eating which favors more seafood. “We see year over year that there is this cohort aged 35 to 54 that is going to be spending far more across categories, including food expenditures, than any others,” said Will Notini, consumer insights manager at Chicago-based Technomic, a leading market tracker for over 50 years.” The company has contracted with the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute to identify trends in seafood consumption and how best to position...
The committee responsible for organizing Wrangell's annual king salmon derby decided last week to alter its usual scheduling, in light of anticipated emergency orders limiting sport opportunity at the Stikine River. In its 66th year now, the 2018 Wrangell King Salmon Derby is an annual activity put on by the Chamber of Commerce. Its derby committee is a voluntary body filled by community members, currently chaired by Shawn Curley. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game intends to issue an...
