A trawler at Dutch Harbor. Jim Paulin photoOne of the world's largest seafood harvests by volume, the Bering Sea pollock fishery, opened at noon today.
The total allowable catch for the year is 813,000 metric tons, just a shade below last year's limit.
Time was, when the opening gun sounded, boats would start dueling at sea immediately for fish, bad weather be damned. That was during the bruising days of Olympic-style fishing.
Since 1999, we've been using a more genteel system with the fleet broken up into a handful of fishing cooperatives. Each boat within a co-op receives its own set share before the season starts, and crews can net the fish whenever they please.
Of course, nature dictates to some degree when the fishing is best.
In the winter, during what's known as the A season, trawlers target the pollock at a time when they're schooled up and ready to spawn. Thus, the female fish are full of roe that accounts for a big part of the fishery's value, often said to approach $1 billion.
Other top pollock products include fillets, used for goods such as fish sticks and the McDonald's Filet-O-Fish sandwich, and a protein paste called surimi that's fashioned into imitation crab and a slew of Asian specialties.
Pollock isn't the only game in town.
The Bering Sea trawl fishery for Pacific cod also opened at noon today. This is another huge and lucrative fishery, with a quota of 168,780 metric tons for the year.
3 comments:
Check this out...This is known as a Marine Stewardship Council product...Let me be more specific. It's "A" Season! The highly prized Pollock Roe, or Asian Peanut Butter, is agressively caught. Exactly, How is that Done? Well, being that the highest grade of roe is often caught on the bottom tier of the fish schools...mako medium #1 (correct me if I am wrong,please).At optimum times of the day,the fish schools gather on the bottom of the sea floor, to feed, where the competition for food is fierce, and like always the most aggressive fish, feed first.(Kinda like the boats). From there, they make their migration to the shallows, in the hopes of spawning. Now, these fish, assemble from the MID-WATER column, which was previously, professed, where they are always caught by the Pelagic TRAWL Fleet....hahaha..This just kills me...The fleet's objective is to make the most of that quota, per boat. The most experienced and effective groups always land the highest grade of roe. But, how do they do it? Well, they must go down to the fish! Yep, they are Hard ON!...Hard ON for Pollock...Hard On the BOTTOM!...Hard-On to make the Big Bucks! And they will do it at the expense of everything, and everyone else in their path.Be it abuse to their nets and engines, crew, other fish, or the seafloor, they will fill that boat! The more horse power, the bigger the net. The bigger the net, the bigger the path of destruction left it their wake. The loggers re-seed their mountains, the farmers, same m.o. Tell me what are you going to do to replenish the oceans? Is that what a fish farm does? I want to know how my taxpayer funded government giveaways are going to solve your dilemma. Maybe you should start with the clean up of all that wire that has been dumped in the North Pacific, on your trip home to your ship yards. Maybe you call this fishing, but I don't. There should be a limit on the amount of sweep wire used on cod-boats. And, there should be government monitors on foot ropes. A kind of like VMS for your nets...Just think, if you lose it, like the many that are, already, down there rolling around, and dangling on wrecks, at least, you know where it's at. Then, the government can extrapolate on how much damage it's caused, and assess fines in the name of sustainability!...It's time to get your slippers off, and get your boots back on and work for a living! Get some salt in your hair for a change. Laziest fishery there ever was...overpaid pre-madonnas...paid to play a video game.....
Don't even want to hear about the fish that are feeding, often projecting a lower quality roe from belly burns...give me a break...those roe techs can work wonders...but hey, maybe you don't have an observer aboard, right now, you could nip it in the bud, and you could just dump em all overboard, and it won't come off your quota....now that's being a prudent fisherman, and a good businessman....what the management don't know won't hurt them...right? ...And what's this shit about going black boat, on the cod grounds?...T-bones' got an old schooner, and just don't care anymore what goes bump in the night....best to show your colors...dragger
How about 4" Pollock for bait. $ure they FIsh GOOD, but WOULD not a 3 Lb.er fill MORE HOOK$?? Yep. BETTer to DUMP THEM OFF the $TERN DEAD FOR.OVER. yep. waayy BETTer too grind them up to feed the caged, steroided, whore-moaned, red-food color-ed, caged, un-WILD VICtoms. yep. BETTer to EAT ALL the EGG$ before they GROW UP and EAT ALL the Gulf $hrimp. Eh!? that i$$ what happened to THO$E BILLION$ OF DOLLAR$ and THOUSAND$ of JOB$, right!? that$ what a dragking told ME. The Deckbo$$ of the auriga, P$I$ter $hip too the erIca and ahhROARa, $aid I wA$$ JU$T MAD becau$$e he had de$troyed more KING CRAB than I HAD ever $$een, A$$ a LIFE-LONG Career Crabber. NO mentION of the HABITAT RUE-I-NEED FOR-EVER!?? gue$$ he DIDn't think THAT FAR, A-HEAD. Doe$ NOT the ADFG REcCOmend dynaMIGHT A$$ a CLEANER/CHEAPer method of DE$TRUCTION??? CHEAPerr than LETting COmpetition in the BAY,... RIGHT?? WHO WANT$ JOB$ ANYWAY$??? $$pecially JOB$ that INclude WORK. ThAt only LEAD$ TO PAYing TAXE$. And YOU KNOW what THAT LEAD$ TOO. ROED$ and $CHULL$ yUCK. WHO WANT$ HOME-WORK ANY-WAY. ONLY LEADS TO REALITY. WA$TE of time. Yep. HOpe duh bill too dienamite from dragger$ pA$$E$. DEN duh Observer vont HAVE TO GO BE-LOW D_CK -FOR U.S. too $hoot the $EA LYING$ and B-loogie$. WHOA!! P$uckaFi$H ON!! WAHOO!! BETTerr toe HERDerr the 3"err$ ARE GET-TINK avay!! more HOSE-P.O.W.err, MO GAZ, MO SULPHER, MO CARBONIC ACID. YIPEeee??!! HOO-AHH!!! -NOT.-OVER.- PACE.-L8r
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