Commercial troll season opened Monday

Commercial trollers started their summer season Monday, July 1, targeting a catch of approximately 66,700 chinook salmon in an opener that will be closed by emergency order when catch estimates approach that harvest target.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced last week that trollers are expected to hit the limit this weekend, after just six or seven days of fishing.

Last year, Southeast trollers brought in about 85,000 king salmon from July 1 to July 12, about 8,000 fish over the target for the first opener of the season.

The limit for trollers is based on the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Treaty allocation for Southeast Alaska, which the Alaska Board of Fisheries distributes between gear groups by regulation.

This year’s all-gear harvest target of 207,150 treaty chinook is allocated among commercial and sport fisheries according to management plans established by the board for the commercial purse seine (8,900 treaty chinook), drift gillnet (6,000), set gillnet (1,000) and troll fisheries (153,000), as well as the sport fishery (38,250).

Trollers already harvested a chunk of their treaty chinook allotment for the 2023-2024 accounting year. During the winter troll fishery, trollers caught 45,300 chinook, and during the spring troll fishery hooked 11,500 chinook, according to the state.

A total of 254 trollers in Southeast Alaska participated in the winter troll fishery that lasted from October to March. Fishermen received an average price of $8.11 per pound for chinook.

A total of 204 trollers participated in spring troll openings that began on May 1 in some individually managed areas near salmon hatcheries and release sites in Southeast Alaska, as well as along migratory corridors for chum salmon. The spring fishery is managed to target Alaska hatchery-produced chinook and chum salmon, according to Fish and Game.

The department estimates that 92,400 treaty chinook salmon remain to be harvested by trollers during the summer fishery. Following the first summer chinook opener this week, trollers in August will be able to target the remainder of their allocation during a second summer opener sometime in August.