The advent of the charter halibut stamp

Read about it here.

F/V Arctic Sea remains aground at St. George Island

Here's a situation report from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Station Papa out?

The Alaska Marine Community Coalition is sounding the alarm about the Trump administration moving to dismantle "one of the world's most advanced ocean monitoring systems."

This includes Station Papa, a key site in the Gulf of Alaska.

"Station Papa has been collecting ocean data since the Cold War era, making it one of the longest continuous ocean records in the North Pacific," AMCC writes in this blog post.

With ocean changes evolving rapidly and events such as salmon and crab crashes and marine heatwaves becoming more common, the group argues "we need more information about our oceans, not less."

Bristol Bay eastside salmon announcement No. 1

Read it right here.

Northline barge heads north

Northline Seafoods announced on Facebook today that its 400-foot freezer barge, the Hannah, departed Bellingham for the Bristol Bay salmon fishery.

This is notable, as the company had seen upheaval in recent weeks with the abrupt resignation of its chief executive, Ben Blakey.

This will be the barge's third season packing sockeye in Bristol Bay.

To the best of our knowledge, Northline and its barge are under the control of Bristol Bay Economic Development Corp. and Zachary Scott, a Seattle private investment firm.

It's believed Northline might work cooperatively with a larger processor, Silver Bay Seafoods, to handle Bristol Bay salmon catches this summer. But thus far, no company has publicly confirmed such an arrangement.

Copper River gets it started

Alaska's new salmon season kicked off Friday with a 12-hour commercial driftnet opener in the Copper River District.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reported a harvest of 967 Chinook salmon and 39,000 sockeye.

That compares to 1,090 Chinook and 28,128 sockeye in the first opener last year.

The department has set another 12-hour opener for Tuesday in the Copper River District.

Circle Seafoods touts salmon prices for 2026

Here's the announcement.