Heavy fishing on chinook salmon by sport fishermen — including nonresident charter customers — is taking away fishing time from Southeast Alaska’s commercial troll fleet this summer.
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Aug. 6 that trollers in August and September will likely lose out on the remainder of the summer troll fishery allocation for chinook because sport fishermen across Southeast are on track to exceed their summer 2024 allocation by about 14,000 chinook, and because of a regulation change that the department implemented in 2022.
Regardless of the chinook issue, the summer commercial troll fishery for coho salmon will remain open in Southeast Alaska and Yakutat until further notice, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced Aug. 6.
“Based on the second coho salmon run strength assessment, which evaluates catch rates, projected catches and early escapement data, the department has determined a troll closure is not necessary at this time for coho salmon conservation or allocation,” Grant Hagerman, commercial troll management biologist in Sitka, said last week.
The summer chinook troll fishery started July 1, and a total 467 troll permit holders across the region harvested about 83,000 chinook during an initial eight-day retention period — about 16,000 more fish than the department’s harvest target of 66,700 chinook for the opener.
Fish and Game manages the July 1 opener by regulation to harvest about 70% of the trollers’ summer allocation of “treaty” chinook salmon, which is about 92,400 chinook for the 2024 summer season.
Harvest of migratory “treaty” chinook populations along the U.S. West Coast and Canada is delegated between the two countries by the Pacific Salmon Treaty. In Alaska, the harvest is allocated between gear groups by regulations set by the Alaska Board of Fisheries.
Trollers this year were allocated a total of 153,000 treaty chinook between their winter, spring and summer seasons, while sport fishermen were allocated 38,250 chinook.
After trollers in July exceeded their initial summer chinook harvest target, Fish and Game estimated on Aug. 6 that about 15,000 treaty chinook still remained in trollers’ allocation for the rest of the summer season.
But, under a 2022 regulatory change, that second summer troll fishery opportunity for chinook is dependent on not exceeding the all-gear harvest in Southeast. Any overharvest by the sport fishery is subtracted from the commercial troll allocation of chinook.
In 2023, the sport fleet exceeded its allocation by more than 15,000 chinook, and the state implemented new restrictions on trollers to balance for the overage.
Trollers in 2024 likely won’t have any late-season opportunity to catch chinook because the heavy catch by sport fishermen again cut into trollers’ allocation.
The Alaska Trollers Association on Aug. 6 decried the department’s current management of chinook harvest between troll and sport fishers.
Sport chinook catches are climbing year-to-year and exceeding the allocation because “the numbers of non-resident anglers are unconstrained and growing rapidly as tourism levels rise across the region and charter businesses proliferate,” the trollers association said in a prepared statement Aug. 6.
The “unlimited and growing” charter fishing industry, which is “composed primarily of guided non-resident tourists, will take over 14,000 chinook from the troll fishery (this summer) and force the elimination of the competitive August (troll) fishery,” the association said.
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