CFEC sets a meeting

The Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission plans to meet Sept. 2, and the agenda includes some quite significant items.

Prince William Sound pollock trawl fishery set

The Prince William Sound pollock trawl fishery is set to open Jan. 20 with a quota of 7.3 million pounds, says this advisory announcement from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

That's a 20 percent drop from last season's quota of 9.1 million pounds.

No PWS shrimp pot fishery this year

"The Prince William Sound Area commercial shrimp pot fishing season will not open in 2025," the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said today in an advisory announcement.

The department cited declining abundance of spot shrimp.

Board of Fisheries to weigh PWS proposals

The Alaska Board of Fisheries is meeting this week in Cordova to consider dozens of proposals for the Prince William Sound region.

Here are a few attracting our interest:

Proposal 16, from the Chenega IRA Council, would close the Prince William Sound pollock trawl fishery.

Proposal 43, from Cordova District Fishermen United, would establish a directed octopus fishery in Prince William Sound.

Proposal 73, from James Burton, and several other proposals deal with permit stacking in the salmon seine and driftnet fisheries.

Proposal 78, from Virgil Umphenour, would reduce Prince William Sound pink salmon hatchery production by 25 percent.

Please help?

As expected, this season's pink salmon bust is beginning to spawn calls for assistance.

State Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, chair of the House Special Committee on Fisheries, has sent a letter asking the governor to seek federal fishery disaster relief for Prince William Sound and other areas.

Salmon notes

Here's an update on the 2024 season, which is all but done.

• This will finish as a poor season, at least in terms of harvest volume. The statewide, all-species catch stands at 96.2 million fish. The season likely will finish with a harvest under 100 million for the first time in 37 years, since 1987, when the tally was 96.5 million.

• The Prince William Sound purse seine fishery closes today, perhaps appropriately on Friday the 13th. It's been a nightmare year for seiners with a catch of less than 5 million pink salmon, far below forecast. Expect pleas for disaster relief coming out of Cordova.

• Alaska never has produced many salmon north of the Arctic Circle, but this season's production was particularly paltry at Kotzebue. "The 2024 commercial harvest of 5,392 chum salmon was below the 1962-2023 average harvest of 231,196 chum salmon and the poorest harvest since the state started managing the Kotzebue District in 1962," the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports.

• It wasn't gloomy everywhere this season. On Aug. 12, OBI Seafoods blew the cannery steam whistle in Petersburg to mark 100,000 cases of canned salmon produced.

Salmon notes

Here are a couple of items of interest from the salmon season so far.

• The industry has notched a productive season in Bristol Bay. The total catch stands at 30.8 million sockeye, well above the preseason forecast of 25 million. The fish, however, reportedly are quite small this year. Deckboss remains in the dark on prices. Evidently they were good, as we've heard no bellyaching from fishermen.

• The Prince William Sound seine fishery is struggling. The common property pink salmon harvest through July 26 was "very poor" at 3.9 million fish, or 68 percent below the even-year average for 2004-22, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports.