Dive boat, one aboard, reported lost in Southeast

Here's the story from KRBD in Ketchikan.

Box 'em up!

The state has received an application for a proposed "live geoduck clam boxing facility" at Ketchikan.

See the project details here.

Geoduck groans

For the fifth consecutive week, the commercial geoduck clam fishery in Southeast Alaska is closed due to all harvest areas failing paralytic shellfish poison testing.

Deckboss isn't sure if this is some kind of record. But he's confident dive fishermen must be frustrated with such a long closure.

Here's the latest disappointing announcement from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Following up on those geoduck proposals

You might recall our recent post about the state Board of Fisheries considering two proposals to establish "equal shares" for permit holders in the Southeast geoduck clam fishery.

So what happened?

The board, meeting in Petersburg, took no action on the proposals.

Sticky proposals for geoduck fishery

Alaska geoducks — worth a lot of clams. ADF&G photo

The Alaska Board of Fisheries is meeting all this week at the Sons of Norway Hall in Petersburg, and quite a few interesting Southeast shellfish proposals are on the table.

Proposals 183 and 184 strike me as particularly intriguing.

These would revolutionize the fishery for geoduck (pronounced gooey-duck), a giant clam divers collect from the seafloor. Most all of the clams are exported live to China, and can retail for upwards of $20 a pound, says a recent study done for the Southeast Alaska Regional Dive Fisheries Association.

The two proposals would convert the geoduck harvest from a weekly competition among divers to a program where each permit holder would be allocated an equal share of the annual Southeast geoduck quota.

The Sitka Geoduck Marketing Association is offering the two proposals, one of which has an added component to disperse divers between desirable and less desirable harvest areas.

Proponents say the proposals would maximize the value of the fishery by allowing divers to focus on product quality rather than speed. They also tout other benefits such as better controlling the flow of product to the market, and reducing pressure on divers to work in poor weather.

However, the most competitive divers might suffer because of a redistribution of harvest share.

And the Alaska Department of Fish and Game says it would have to hire more people to manage an equal shares fishery. It also cites potential for high-grading, where divers might keep only top quality geoducks and discard others, increasing harvest mortality.

Nevertheless, the department is taking a "neutral" stance on the proposals.

Well, Deckboss is sure you've heard all the arguments, pro and con, in past debates over various forms of catch shares.

Certainly, based on the recent trend, an equal share of the Southeast geoduck fishery would be quite lucrative.

The dockside value of the fishery has soared, from an estimated $465,000 for the 2000-01 harvest of 438,334 pounds of geoducks to nearly $5.6 million in 2010-11, when 845,582 pounds were taken.

The state has issued 112 Southeast geoduck permits, but only 69 divers made landings last season, earning an average of $81,000.

Should be quite a meeting in Petersburg.

Diving for dollars

Giant red sea cucumber. Photo by Eric Munk, NMFS Kodiak

Alaska's commercial fishing industry really doesn't have an off-season. Somebody is trying to catch something most all the time.

This month, for instance, a number of specialized commercial fisheries are opening.

Most of them involve divers going to the bottom to collect odd creatures that, frankly, aren't much in demand in the United States but command good money in Asia.

Here's a rundown of the action:

• The Southeast Alaska sea cucumber dive fishery opened Oct. 5 with a quota of almost 1.6 million pounds.

• The Southeast red sea urchin red sea urchin fishery opened Oct. 1 with a quota of almost 5.1 million pounds.

• The Southeast geoduck clam fishery opened Oct. 1 with a quota of 623,300 pounds.

• The Southeast pot shrimp fishery opened Oct. 1 with a quota of 692,400 pounds. Fishermen will be going after such species as spot and coonstripe shrimp.

• The Kodiak red sea cucumber fishery opened Oct. 1 with a quota of 140,000 pounds. Smaller quotas are available in the Chignik, Alaska Peninsula, Aleutian Islands and Bering Sea districts.

Deckboss would like to say he doesn't have much of a taste for sea cucumber or urchin, but he sure wouldn't turn down a box of those huge, luscious spot shrimp!