The Bristol Bay sockeye catch now stands at almost 27 million fish, or about 10 million more than state biologists expected for the season.
Daily production has held steady at around 1 million fish for the past week.
Of the bay's five fishing districts, the Naknek-Kvichak zone has been the star with a tally of more than 13 million sockeye.
Still no word on what processors intend to pay gillnetters for the fish.
I overheard a rep from Trident say that the fishermen were going to go berserk when they hear the price. He said they would not even hint at it until the season was over as he feared they would stop fishing if they knew how low it might be. . With big runs of sockeye all over the state and in BC it could be very bad indeed!
ReplyDeleteOcean Beauty posted $1.20 a lb late afternoon yesterday. Icicle says $0.28 a lb for Pinks.
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to extreme with the $2.00 promise, 5K signing bonus and 10K advance when you splash?
ReplyDeleteIn the grand scheme of things, a big Bay run is just what we wanted. There is no fishermen in the Bay that would rather have a smaller run. 100,000 lbs at $1.20 is always better than 40,000 at $2.00. Of course, you could have fished for SBS and got more for your fish.
ReplyDeleteAnd this will all get retro'ed closer to $1.50 when SE pinks come in a little light. After all, it is all about total harvest and exportable poundage.
Trident just posted $0.90 a lb
ReplyDeleteGood for the fishermen in BB, except not knowing how much you are getting per pound until later on in the season is unsettling.
ReplyDelete@ 7:18 AM Silver Bay had the most restrictive limits during the season. They were trying to make their fishermen catch less than everyone else. Good luck on getting the best price from Silver Bay. Their plant was way overbudget and I'm sure they will dump more money into the plant after the season. They could not handle their fleet this year, and the rest of their fleet will be joining them next year.
ReplyDeleteSilver Bay....Can you say Ponzi scheme
ReplyDeleteSBS bought more salmon than any company other than Trident last year. If it is a ponzi scheme, it's working quite well.
ReplyDeleteSuch is the nature of a ponzi. Works brilliantly until it implodes.
DeleteSBS on limits only one day and that was the day fishing dropped off. Most of their boats couldn't even get the limit. SBS did one heck of a job in year one getting a new plant up and running.
ReplyDeleteThey also double pumped fish, froze round fish, froze block fish and 3 day old fish. That won't help the Bay price.
ReplyDeleteActually, it dones not matter. All SBS fish are destined for reprocessing, especially poor quality, but big quantity, Bay sockeye. They will end up in pouches and cans. Double pumped. Good. Frozen round. Perfect. 3 days old, but cold. Perfect.
ReplyDelete