State says troll season will open July 1, but no chinook harvest

The Southeast Alaska summer commercial troll season for coho and chum salmon will open on July 1, but no chinook retention will be allowed, the state Department of Fish and Game announced May 30. The prohibition on troll-caught kings is due to the ongoing lawsuit by the nonprofit Wild Fish Conservancy against the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Still, Alaska trollers are holding out hope that king salmon fishing will open as usual on July 1 if the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals grants a stay of last month’s U.S. District Court order that blocks the fishery.

“We live and hope that the 9th Circuit will grant the stay of the order from the U.S. District Court,” said Matt Donohoe, president of the Alaska Trollers Association.

ATA and the state are backing the National Marine Fisheries Service in the lawsuit filed by the Washington state-based Wild Fish Conservancy. The lawsuit is aimed at protecting the endangered southern resident killer whales, which spend part of the year in Puget Sound and prey on the same stocks of king salmon that are caught in the Southeast Alaska troll fishery.

The conservancy claims the Southeast troll fisheries threaten the Endangered Species Act-listed chinook salmon and southern resident killer whales that feed on them in waters off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and Canada.

On May 26, the U.S. District Court in Seattle denied a motion for a stay on the court’s order of earlier in the month. That order vacated the incidental take statement issued by NMFS in 2019 that had allowed the Southeast troll catch.

The state is appealing to the 9th Circuit, asking for a stay by June 23 to allow fishermen time to prepare for the king salmon troll fishery.

Donohoe said he feels like trollers have been living under a “sword of Damocles” with the threat of not being able to troll for chinook because of the lawsuit, leaving only coho and chum fishing.

He said the market for early season cohos isn’t good because of the relatively small size of the fish this time of year, and the banner catch of Bristol Bay sockeye last year.