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The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the opening of the commercial king salmon troll fishery in District 8. District 8: will be open from 12:01 a.m., Monday, May 2 - 11:59 p.m., Wednesday, May 4, with restrictions at the Babbler Point Area, Wrangell Harbor Area, Greys Pass and Beacon Point/Point Frederick Area. All fish legally retained in the commercial salmon troll fishery, whether for sale or retained for personal use (condition code 95) must be recorded on a fish ticket....
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced the first opening of the Southeast Alaska drift gillnet fishery will begin Monday, May 2, 2016. This opening is directed at returns of Stikine River king salmon and will occur in the following area: District 8: will be open from 8:00 a.m., Monday, May 2 - 8:00 a.m., Tuesday, May 3, with some restrictions at the Stikine River, Beacon Point/Point Frederick Area, Bear Creek and Wrangell Harbor Area. Gillnet Gear Restrictions: The gear allowed will be the standard length and depth (300 fathoms and...
Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan has scored seats on nearly every Congressional committee that deal with issues on, over and under the oceans. That fulfills a commitment he made to Kodiak when he ran for office two years ago, he said at a ComFish town meeting during a two day stay on “the Rock.” Sullivan ticked off a list of fishery related actions he’s had a hand in getting accomplished over the past year: passage of an enforcement act that combats global fish pirating and seafood fraud; adding language to bills that lifts pricey class...
Alaska fishermen can send an SOS call directly to the Coast Guard, but many are not hooking up to the new lifeline. Digital Selective Calling (DSC) instantly signals a distress call over VHF radios to other vessels, and the feature has been a required part of the hand-held units since 1996. In Alaska, the ability for mariners to hook up with the Coast Guard was acquired just last year when transceiver and antenna ‘high sites’ in Southeast and South Central regions came on line (more are scheduled soon). “There was a lot of rumor going aroun...
Alaska’s 2016 salmon harvest will be down by 40 percent from last year’s catch, if the fish show up as predicted. The preliminary numbers released by the Alaska Dept. of Fish and Game call for a total catch of 161 million salmon this year; the 2015 harvest topped 268 million fish. The shortfall stems from a projected big decrease for pink salmon. A humpie harvest forecast of 90 million would be a drop of 100 million fish from last summer. Here’s the statewide catch breakdown for the other salmon species: for sockeye, the forecast calls for a...
If a fisherman gets 50-cents a pound for his reds, how can the fish fetch $10, $15 or more at retail counters? “It’s all the other stuff that happens after he sells the fish. A lot of costs, margins and profits are included in that retail price,” said Andy Wink, a Fisheries Economist with the McDowell Group in Juneau. It’s an ‘apples and oranges’ comparison when it comes to using weights paid for the raw goods and the end product. A lot of weight is lost going from a whole fish, which fishermen are paid on, to a fillet at retail counters. ...
Fish stomachs could help solve the mystery of why Alaska halibut are so small for their age. Halibut weights are about one-third of what they were 30 years ago, meaning a halibut weighing 120 pounds in the late 1980s is closer to 40 pounds nowadays. One culprit could be arrowtooth flounders, whose numbers have increased 500 percent over the same time to outnumber the most abundant species in the Gulf: pollock. Fishermen for decades have claimed the toothy flounders, which grow to about three feet in length, are blanketing the bottom of the...
Early signs point to continuing headwinds in world markets for Alaska salmon. Global currencies remain in disarray, the ongoing Russian seafood embargo is diverting more farmed salmon to the U.S., and tons of product remains in freezers from back to back bumper sockeye runs. (The majority of Alaska’s salmon goes to market in frozen, headed and gutted (H&G) form.) One plus: aggressive market promotions have kept reds moving briskly at retail outlets at home and abroad and removed some of the back log. “What the Alaska industry really needs is...
Fishing lives and fishing wives are set to be showcased for a national audience; one as a documentary and the other, on reality television. The first, an hour-long feature called Last Man Fishing, focuses on the lifestyles and challenges facing our nation’s small-scale fishermen. “We’re from Indiana and we realized there is a disconnect between the consumer and where their fish is coming from,” said JD Schuyler who is co-producing the documentary with his wife, Kelley. “We want to bridge the gap of people appreciating seafood, while also unde...
Needy Alaskans are enjoying a rare taste of sablefish, thanks to a science project that kept research fish from going over the rails. Sablefish, more commonly called black cod, are one of the world’s priciest, high end fish, and Alaska waters are home to the largest stocks. The deep water fish are found at depths of 5,000 feet or more and can live to nearly 100 years. The Gulf of Alaska fishery, which has a catch total of about 20 million pounds this year (18.2 million in 2017) is usually worth more than $90 million to Alaska fishermen at t...
Alaska’s halibut stocks are showing signs of an uptick and fishermen’s catches will not be slashed for the first time in 15 years. Fishery managers on Friday set the coast wide Pacific halibut harvest for 2016 at 29.89 million pounds, a 2.3 percent increase from last year. “This was probably the most positive, upbeat meeting in the past decade,” said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. “The feeling is the stocks are up and the resource is stabilizing and recovering, and it’s the first meeting in a long time that there weren’t any...
The Sitka black-tailed deer hunting season is now closed in Southeast Alaska. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reminds all hunters who have obtained deer harvest tickets to return completed hunt reports to their nearest office. Even those who did not hunt or harvest a deer must submit a report. Hunt reports may be submitted by mail or in person at an ADFG office, or online at hunt.alaska.gov. The information collected from the hunt reports helps biologists estimate changes in area-specific deer harvest and hunting effort, monitor...
A single Chinook salmon is worth more than a barrel of oil. The winter kings being caught by Southeast Alaska trollers are averaging10 pounds each with a dock price of $7.34 a pound, according to state fish tickets. That adds up to $73.40 per fish, compared to less than $25 per barrel of oil. Those who depend on fishing for their livelihoods want to make sure that budget cuts combined with any new fishery taxes, don’t cut core services that result in missed fishing opportunities. “Not all cuts are equal, and if there are cuts that interfere wit...
Fishing issues will take a back seat to budget cutting when the Alaska legislature convenes on January 19 for its 90-day session, but two early fish bills (and one hold-over) already are getting attention. One new measure aims to stop the migration of fishing permits outside of the state. We lost over 50 percent of our permits over the 1973 original issuance of permits,” said Robin Samuelsen of the Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation (BBEDC), speaking at a two day Alaska Sea Grant workshop last week in Anchorage titled Fisheries Access...
Alaska’s mariculture industry has passed some big milestones, and is getting set to head into the weeds. Aquatic farming, which was Ok’d by Alaska lawmakers in 1988, topped $1 million in shellfish sales for the first time ever in 2014, coming in at $1.2 million. “This is the highest sales we’ve had since the inception of the program which is pretty exciting,” said Cynthia Pring-Ham, Director of Mariculture for the state Dept. of Fish and Game, adding that shellfish production increased 27 percent. That’s an average of $7,049 in sales per a...
9 marks a quarter of a century for this weekly column that targets Alaska’s seafood industry. At the end of every year, I proffer my ‘no holds barred’ look back at the best and worst fish stories, and select the biggest story of the year. The list is in no particular order and I’m sure to be missing a few, but here are the Fishing Picks and Pans for 2015: • Most eco-friendly fish feat: The massive airlift/barge project led by the Dept. of Environmental Conservation that removed more than 800,000 pounds of marine debris from remote Alaska be...
“Tis the season for even bigger Alaska fish catches when groundfish seasons open at the start of the New Year. Catches of pollock, cod, flounders and other groundfish account for nearly 85 percent of Alaska’s harvest poundage, and 67 percent of the nation’s total groundfish harvests. Those numbers could increase due to boosts in several catch quotas in both the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea for the next two year. For pollock, the nation’s largest fishery, the catch is up slightly to 1.3 million metric tons, or just under three billion pound...
Alaska crab shells are fueling an eco-revolution that will drive new income streams for fabrics to pharmaceuticals to water filters. And for the first time, it is happening in the USA and not overseas. The entrepreneurs at Tidal Vision in October made the leap from their labs in Juneau to a pilot plant outside of Seattle to test an earth-friendly method that extracts chitin, the structural element in the exoskeletons of shellfish and insects. Their first big run a few weeks ago was tested on a 60,000 pound batch of crab shells delivered by...
The Division of Sport Fish is now accepting public comment on its statewide fish stocking plan. The Division, with assistance from private non-profit hatchery operators, plans to release approximately 6.5 million fish into the waters of Alaska every year for the next five years to benefit recreational anglers. The stocking plan outlines the location, number, and size or life stage for each species of fish that are planned for stocking. Only fish produced from Division of Sport Fish hatchery facilities and from private non-profit hatcheries,...
Caught by Alaskans for Alaskans is a business concept that bested 170 others in a global fisheries business competition last month at Stanford University in California. The contest, sponsored by Fish 2.0, awards creative approaches that build demand for sustainable seafood, reduce waste and support fishing towns. The Alaska Community Seafood Hub model, presented by Kelly Harrell of Anchorage, won $5,000 in cash and is in the running for more money to be awarded this month. Fish 2.0 builds the knowledge and connections needed to increase...
Despite some encouraging signs that Pacific halibut stocks are stabilizing after being on a downward spiral for nearly two decades, catches could decrease slightly in most regions again next year. That’s IF fishery managers accept the catch recommendations by halibut scientists, which they don’t always do. At the International Pacific Halibut Commission meeting last week in Seattle, the total 2016 catch, meaning for the West Coast, British Columbia and Alaska, was recommended at 26.56 million pounds, down from 29.22 million pounds this year. Fo...
The call is out for products to compete in Alaska’s most celebrated seafood bash, and another new category has been added to the mix. For the 23rd year, the Symphony of Seafood in 2016 will showcase innovative new products that are entered both by major Alaska seafood companies and small ‘mom and pops’- such as last year’s top winner: Pickled Willy’s of Kodiak for their smoked black cod tips. All entries are judged privately by a panel of experts in several categories, based on the product’s packaging and presentation, overall eating expe...
Alaskans are being asked to weigh in on two tough issues: budgets and halibut bycatch. First off, the state Boards of Fish and Game are asking for ideas on cutting costs within their annual meeting cycles, as well as for the state agencies involved with providing all of the backup information to the boards. Both boards include seven members which are appointed by the governor and approved by the Alaska legislature for three year terms. The Fish Board’s role is to conserve and develop the fishery resources for the state’s subsistence, com...
