Are you ready for salmon?

Gillnetters are expected to get their first crack at those famed Copper River king and sockeye salmon on May 16.

That's the word from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, which yesterday issued this season outlook for the Prince William Sound region.

Last year's Copper River fishery started a bit earlier, on May 13.

The Copper River traditionally stars as the year's first major gillnet salmon fishery, and gastronomes nationwide pay handsomely for the catch.

The Sound's other fleet, the purse seiners, will start May 23 with a fishery targeting chum salmon returning to the Armin F. Koernig hatchery, the outlook says.

Limited entry stands for halibut charter boats

A Washington, D.C., judge has denied a motion for a preliminary injunction against new federal regulations limiting the number of halibut charter boats in Southeast and Southcentral Alaska (Areas 2C and 3A).

The judge's order was entered today.

Here's the background on this.

Princely prawns

The Prince William Sound commercial shrimp pot fishery wrapped up its first opener of the season on April 19, and the preliminary results are in: 33 boats caught about 10,000 pounds over five days.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reopened the fishery at 8 a.m. yesterday, and boats can keep catching until 8 p.m. April 29. The quota for the season is 52,760 pounds.

This is the second consecutive year for a commercial shrimp pot harvest in the Prince William Sound. The fishery previously was closed for 18 years due to weak shrimp stocks.

In 2010 the fleet took 45,349 pounds of shrimp out of a quota of 55,000 pounds.

Shrimpers haul up predominantly spot shrimp, also known as spot prawns, in their pots.

These are big, luscious shrimp, the kind Forrest Gump and Bubba Blue could talk about all day long.

Spot shrimp are the largest variety of shrimp in the North Pacific. They take their name from the white, paired spots located just behind the head and just in front of the tail.

A sinking and a sub

Dutch Harbor radio reporter Alexandra Gutierrez snapped this curious photo on Thursday. Look at it closely. On the left, under the dock there, you can see the fishing vessel Zenith almost fully submerged and enclosed with orange boom. Gutierrez reported the boat went down quickly Thursday morning "for reasons still unknown," and the U.S. Coast Guard was investigating. Now look to the right side of the photo, out in the water. That would be one of the Navy's fast-attack, Los Angeles-class nuclear submarines, making a rare and brief appearance in the harbor for a crew change. On Thursday morning. Well, let me torpedo any conspiracy theories right now by saying Deckboss is sure the sinking and the sub are entirely, positively unrelated.

On the air

Hear Frank Kelty and me talk Adak and lots of other topics on KUCB's Unalaska Fisheries Report.

And the winners are...

Fritz Johnson and Warren "Barney" Johnson have been re-elected to the Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association board of directors.

More details here.

Distress call near Kodiak ends happily

This just in from the U.S. Coast Guard:

April 21, 2011

Coast Guard responds to mayday call miles north of Kodiak

KODIAK — Coast Guard Sector Anchorage launched an MH-60 Jayhawk rescue helicopter after receiving a mayday call from a crewmember aboard the 71-foot stern trawler Coho reporting they were taking on water with three people aboard 20 miles northwest of Kodiak at 12:08 a.m.

The helicopter crew and the nearby good Samaritan vessel Leslie Lee were able to transport dewatering pumps but the Coho crew declined assistance after they were able to dewater the vessel.

"We train everyday to help maintain readiness for any emergency situation," said Senior Chief Petty Officer Rex Walsingham, Sector Anchorage command center supervisor. "The training benefited us today as we were on scene and prepared to assist the crew aboard the Coho as needed."

The crew aboard the fishing vessel moored safely in Kodiak at 9 a.m.

Here's a Coast Guard video of the response.