The wait is nearly over

We'll soon have the government's answer on whether Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon should be listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The National Marine Fisheries Service is pledging to render its decision on or before May 13.

A nonprofit organization, the Wild Fish Conservancy, petitioned NMFS for the listing and later sued the agency for failing to meet the deadline for making its decision. The lawsuit has now been settled with the setting of the May 13 date.

Chinook runs across Alaska are weak, forcing fishery conservation measures.

But the Alaska Department of Fish and Game doesn't support listing the fish, writing in September 2024: "The best available scientific and commercial information makes it clear that GOA Chinook salmon do not meet the definition of a threatened or endangered species."

Three charged with intentionally sinking boats

Here's a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Juneau watch

Senate Bill 161, which "puts an end to bottom trawling in state waters beginning in 2028," according to its sponsor, is up for consideration tomorrow in the Senate Resources Committee.

Report: 'Deadliest' crewman falls overboard, dies

Here's the story from the Associated Press.

Juneau watch

A bill up for a hearing tomorrow in the House Special Committee on Fisheries aims to make Metlakatla tribal interests eligible for state hatchery financing.

One commercial fishing group is very opposed.

The sponsor of House Bill 253 is Ketchikan Republican Rep. Jeremy Bynum, whose district includes Metlakatla.

Significant news from Silver Bay

Silver Bay Seafoods, one of Alaska's largest salmon processors, today provided the following statement from Branson Spiers, chief operating officer:

Silver Bay Seafoods will be buying salmon in all Prince William Sound drift and seine fisheries in 2026, and we will continue to provide fleet services in Cordova. Given the low salmon forecasts in PWS, we've developed an operational plan that prioritizes fishermen opportunity and economics, with processing planned in Valdez and Seward.

We've asked the company for clarification, but presumably this means Silver Bay will not process salmon this season at its plant in Cordova, the main port for the gillnet fleet targeting famed Copper River salmon.

Another Area M battle

The Alaska Board of Fisheries this week approved changes, including a reduction in commercial fishing time, for the June salmon fishery along the South Alaska Peninsula.

The fishery, also known as the Area M or False Pass fishery, has long been controversial as an "intercept" fishery in which seiners and gillnetters targeting sockeye sometimes catch chum salmon bound for Western Alaska.

Western Alaska is experiencing a salmon crisis, with chum and Chinook runs crashing. That's put enormous public pressure on the Board of Fisheries and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council to take action to reduce salmon bycatch in fisheries such as Area M and the Bering Sea pollock trawl fishery.

State Sen. Mike Cronk, R-Tok, was among those urging the Board of Fisheries to take action to conserve salmon headed for Western Alaska rivers.

Two commercial fishing groups — Concerned Area M Fishermen and the Area M Seiners Association — opposed language the board ended up passing on a 4-3 vote.

Interesting reading

"Open ocean aquaculture isn't about replacing wild fisheries; it's about complementing them to help provide more American-raised seafood to American families," two congressmen write in The Hill.

Personnel file

• Trident Seafoods today announced the retirement of Jim McManus from the company's board of directors.

• Frank O'Hara III has been elected president of the Wild Alaska Sole Association.

• Keyport LLC, a crab and frozen seafood processor and supplier, has named Craig Morris as president. He joins Keyport after seven years as CEO of the Association of Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers.

Juneau watch

Several bills of importance to the commercial fishing industry were introduced today in the Alaska Legislature. Here's a rundown.

Sen. Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, filed Senate Bill 268 titled "An Act relating to minimum paid sick leave requirements for individuals employed in seafood processing."

Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, filed Senate Bill 269 titled "An Act restructuring the Board of Fisheries."

Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, filed House Bill 356 titled "An Act relating to health and sanitary requirements and certain permits for commercial fishing vessels."

Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome, filed House Bill 368 titled "An Act relating to meetings of the Board of Fisheries."

Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake, filed House Joint Resolution 34 titled "Urging the United States Congress and federal fisheries managers to make changes to the federal Prohibited Species Donation program to reduce the waste of edible bycatch, increase vessel participation, and improve food security in the state."

Rep. Justin Ruffridge, R-Soldotna, filed House Joint Resolution 35 titled "Urging federal fisheries managers to reduce trawl bycatch, maintain existing bycatch limits, and strengthen enforcement; and supporting federal efforts aimed at reducing bycatch and benthic habitat contact."

A must for your fish library

Don Giles, the former CEO of Icicle Seafoods, has published a memoir of his career in the fish business. "Fish Tales: My Unplanned Journey Through the Alaskan Seafood Industry" follows a Texas college kid who starts out unloading crab on a Seward dock and ends up running one of Alaska's great salmon processors. It's a remarkably candid insider account of the stressful life of a seafood executive, with the story extending through the bittersweet sale of Icicle in 2007. In telling his own story, Giles describes monumental changes in the industry such as the advent of individual fishing quotas for halibut and sablefish. Buy the book at Amazon.

Is Little Port Walter dead?

During legislative testimony last week, Scott Wagner, general manager of Sitka-based hatchery operator Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association, dropped some news about NOAA's Little Port Walter Research Station.

"This facility was recently shut down by NOAA in the last couple of months. It is now shuttered, the lights are out, generators off. It's closed," he said.

The station, located on Baranof Island, dates to 1934 and is "the oldest year-round biological field station in Alaska," NOAA says.

Featuring a small hatchery, Little Port Walter has a long and productive history of king salmon and other research, Wagner said.

"It definitely is a shame to see it go," he said.

From the sound of it, funding was a factor in the closure, but we don't know for sure. Deckboss has asked NOAA for comment on the station's status, but we've not heard back.

Bernt Bodal crosses the bar

Here's a press release from American Seafoods Co.

Haight to step aside at CFEC

Glenn Haight, Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission chair, is leaving the position with Feb. 27 to be his last day.

Haight advised the governor's office via email that he didn't plan to seek reappointment for a new four-year term.

The CFEC is a small agency that controls participation in Alaska's many fisheries. It issued 16,973 commercial fishing permits and 7,101 vessel licenses in 2025.

Haight has helmed CFEC since Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed him chair effective May 7, 2022. His term expires soon, on March 1.

Haight came to CFEC after serving a number of years as executive director of the Alaska Board of Fisheries.

What's next for him? He told Deckboss he's not sure.

"I don't have anything hard and fast right now," Haight said. "My wife has a list of things."

Haight has led CFEC through a period of rebuilding, concentrating on filling open positions and advancing efforts to modernize the agency's information technology systems. The agency is budgeted for 21 permanent full-time employees.

"Operations have stabilized," Haight told the governor's office. He further wrote: "Working at CFEC these last few years has been very rewarding. However, I need to step back and let others take over."

CFEC has been controversial over the years, with some questioning whether it has enough work to justify a standalone agency, with handsome salaries for its leadership.

State Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, this year introduced Senate Bill 199 to transfer CFEC's duties to the Department of Fish and Game.

CFEC can have up to two commissioners, and with Haight's exit only Rick Green will remain. It's unclear at this point whether the governor will appoint a replacement for Haight.

The governor appointed Green to the commission in 2024. He previously was special assistant to state Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang, but is best known for his years hosting the "Rick Rydell" radio show.

During a legislative hearing this week in Juneau, with Haight and Green appearing as witnesses, House Speaker Bryce Edgmon asked about the "succession plan" at CFEC.

Green acknowledged he lives in Anchorage, not Juneau where CFEC is based.

Presumably, Green will become lead commissioner, and CFEC for the first time will not have  a commissioner in Juneau, Edgmon said.

"I have to tell you that that is unsettling to me," Edgmon said, noting he himself is a former permit holder. "I think the commissioner should be here with the staff."

Green noted, however, that the commission has an executive director who "basically runs" the agency.

Southeast crab fishery on weather hold

More details in this advisory announcement from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

'The Grace'

Here's a 13-minute documentary film about a struggling Southeast Alaska salmon troller.

Salmon notes

• The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has set a total allowable catch of 1,487,153 sockeye for this year's Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone salmon fishery. That's well above last year's 800,126 sockeye.

• In legislative action in Juneau, the Senate Resources Committee yesterday held a hearing on Senate Bill 158. Sponsored by Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, the bill would segregate eastside Cook Inlet setnet permits into their own district separate from the rest of the inlet. The sponsor says this would help the setnetters — who have been mostly shut down in recent years to conserve scarce Chinook salmon — pursue relief such as a buyback of permits. Video of the hearing is available here and is well worth watching.

• Circle Seafoods, of Aberdeen, Washington, announced plans for the upcoming salmon season: "In partnership with the Metlakatla Indian Community, Circle plans to operate on Annette Island during the 2026 salmon season. The Circle I barge, with a daily production capacity of 500,000 pounds and 1M pounds of salmon tank capacity, is expected to moor at the city dock in Metlakatla and buy fish off the port side." The company posted a video of its rapid slush ice delivery system. Circle debuted its newly built processing barge last year at Metlakatla.

Council moves to limit Bering trawl chum bycatch

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, meeting in Anchorage, just voted 8-3 in favor of a complex motion setting an overall bycatch cap of 45,000 Western Alaska chum salmon in the Bering Sea pollock trawl fishery.

The action concludes what was a passionately debated issue before the council.

We'll update this post with further details and public reaction. See the comments section.

Gulf gets more cod

Details in this press release from the North Pacific Fishery Management Council.

Togiak herring quota set, but will anyone fish?

This year's harvest quota for the Togiak sac roe herring fishery is a sizeable 20,737 tons.

The question is, will any commercial fishermen go after it?

We saw no fishery 2023, 2024 and 2025 due to lack of market interest.

This could well be the fourth consecutive year the Togiak herring fishery remains dormant.

It's odd considering that years ago, this was a wildly competitive fishery with numerous boats, spotter planes and processors going after fish valued in Asia for their eggs, or roe.

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

Mining the seabed off Alaska?

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, in a recent Federal Register notice, said it is "initiating the first steps that could potentially lead to a lease sale for minerals on the Outer Continental Shelf offshore Alaska."

Here's a BOEM map showing prospective mining areas.

Juneau watch

Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, is scheduled to present this sweeping overview tomorrow to the House Finance Committee.

An interesting graph on Page 10 tracks the ex-vessel value of Alaska's seafood harvest over the last decade.

An anxious moment for Bering Sea pollock trawlers

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council is meeting for a week starting Thursday in Anchorage, and the main item on the agenda is possible action to crack down on chum salmon bycatch in the Bering Sea pollock fishery.

Trawlers are worried over the possibility the council might recommend limits, or caps, on the number of chum the fleet could take each season. Once met, such caps could result in closure of the fishery, leaving valuable pollock quota stranded in the water.

The council is under enormous pressure from Western Alaska villagers, environmental groups and others to impose caps on the trawl fleet, which has been broadly blamed for poor chum returns and subsistence fishing restrictions.

"The salmon situation in our communities has become an existential crisis," the Bethel-based Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission said in a letter to the council.

The pollock industry is adamantly opposed to caps, arguing they wouldn't do much to help improve Western Alaska chum runs. For one thing, they argue, many of the chum caught as bycatch in the pollock trawl fishery actually come from Japanese and Russian hatcheries, not Alaska rivers.

Trawl interests urge the council to select a different option, one that would build upon steps the fleet already has begun to avoid chum — particularly Western Alaska chums. These steps include fleet communication, avoidance of chum "hot spots," genetic identification of chum to determine their origin, and the use of salmon excluders in nets.

"It is obvious that the pollock fishery's bycatch is not driving Western Alaska chum declines," United Catcher Boats, a Seattle-based fleet organization, said in a letter to the council. UCB noted complex factors such as changing ocean conditions.

The chum bycatch issue is expected to draw a ton of public comment at the meeting. Council members likely won't have an easy time deciding this one.

Look out for the ladder cops

A fishing vessel owner tells Deckboss he was surprised a few days ago when a U.S. Coast Guard boarding team issued his skipper a ticket for lack of a pilot ladder onboard.

The owner shared a copy of the ticket with us.

The ladder regulation hadn't been enforced previously — boarding teams never asked for a ladder during numerous boardings, he said, and no one ever asked to see one during dockside exams.

The boat involved in the Jan. 21 boarding was a 58-footer fishing cod in the Bering Sea out of False Pass. The boarding team was from the Coast Guard cutter Alex Haley.

The boarding team told the skipper they were "starting now" to enforce the ladder requirement, the fishing vessel owner said.

A pilot ladder is a flexible ladder lowered over the side of a vessel to aid people coming aboard.

Such ladders are helpful, as it's always perilous to climb from boat to boat.

This recent enforcement action begs the question: Are we seeing a crackdown on the pilot ladder requirement?

The vessel owner noted that pilot ladders are bulky, and expensive.

Scott Wilwert, the Coast Guard's fishing vessel safety program manager for Alaska, told us he was not aware of any big enforcement push on pilot ladders.

But fishermen should be aware that if their vessel has more than 4 feet of freeboard, federal regulations require a boarding ladder to assist law enforcement personnel and fishery observers, Wilwert said.

Freeboard can change considerably depending on whether the fishing vessel is tanked down, he noted.

The False Pass vessel had a freeboard of 5 feet, 6 inches, the ticket said.

Seattle sinking

A venerable fishing vessel, the Quaker Maid, sadly has sunk at Fishermen's Terminal in Seattle. We don't have any details on how this happened, nor do we know much about the vessel's history. The 72-foot wood boat, a Hanson make, was built in 1935, according to the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission database. The boat was registered for many years with CFEC as a fish tender, with 2020 being the last year. Her homeport is listed as Excursion Inlet, and the owner is Quaker Maid Fisheries, of Lynnwood, Wash. Note the "for sale" sign on the wheelhouse. Jeff Pond photo

Here's your Copper River salmon forecast

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game predicts an uninspiring commercial harvest this year of 728,000 sockeye.

Juneau watch

The House Special Committee on Fisheries has introduced House Joint Resolution 29 supporting continued prohibition of Russian seafood imports.

Halibut catch limit goes lower, but only a little

The International Pacific Halibut Commission, meeting this week in Bellevue, Washington, set this year's coastwide catch limit at 29.33 million pounds.

That's a decrease of 1.3 percent from last year, says this IPHC press release.

Notably, the entire cut comes in Canada, Area 2B.

The commission set a commercial fishing season of 6 a.m. local time March 26 to 11:59 p.m. Dec. 7.

Congressman Begich draws a fisherman challenger

Independent Bill Hill, a Bristol Bay salmon driftnetter and former teacher, says he'll run against U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, R-Alaska.

Here's his announcement, and here's his bio.

Two hoisted from boat in distress off Kodiak

Details and a photo in this press release from the U.S. Coast Guard.

An update on the F/V Arctic Sea grounding

The fishing vessel Arctic Sea remains hard aground on the rugged north coast of St. George Island in the Bering Sea.

The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation today issued situation report No. 2 on the shipwreck, including some new photos and details on efforts to recover fuel and capture any rats that might be aboard.

Unfortunately, it sounds like tough weather is preventing much progress on salvaging the vessel.

Commercial group takes aim at sport bag limit

This proposal is stirring debate as the International Pacific Halibut Commission holds its annual meeting this week in Bellevue, Washington.

Juneau watch

Rep. Jeremy Bynum, R-Ketchikan, is sponsoring House Bill 253 titled "An Act relating to the fisheries enhancement loan program."

Mary Peltola announces U.S. Senate bid

Former Congresswoman Mary Peltola, a Democrat, today announced she'll challenge incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska.

Peltola, in an email blast from the Democratic National Committee, declared: "My agenda for Alaska will always be: fish, family, freedom."

She further said: "Multinational companies are trawling our waters and decimating our fish stocks."

Sullivan has served in the Senate since 2015 and likewise has shown considerable interest in fisheries, often referring to Alaska as a "superpower of seafood."

How long is too long in Bristol Bay?

The Alaska Board of Fisheries is set for a six-day meeting starting Tuesday in Anchorage to consider regulatory proposals for Bristol Bay, home to Alaska's richest salmon fishery.

The proposals cover a wide range of concerns, but we're particularly interested in this raft of 10 proposals addressing the bay's longstanding 32-foot length limitation for drift gillnet boats.

Proposals to increase the length limit, which many fishermen feel is outmoded and overly confining, have come before the board and failed regularly since 1991.

Now, we see more proposals. For example, Proposal 83, from fisherman Abe Williams, would extend the length limit to 36 feet. Proposal 84, from fisherman Matt Marinkovich, would extend it to 34 feet, 2 inches.

A major objective for fishermen offering the 10 proposals is clearing up confusion over whether certain attachments may somewhat exceed the 32-foot limit. Attachments include anchor rollers, fish dropout baskets, gillnet rollers, outdrives and outdrive guards, trim tabs, transom coolers and more.

In a letter to the Board of Fisheries, Alaska Wildlife Troopers Capt. Derek DeGraaf said the agency doesn't have an opinion on vessel length, but believes allowing no exceptions is best for enforcement.

"Having a maximum distance from the most forward extremity to the aft extremity eliminates all confusion on what is allowed," DeGraaf wrote.

Relaxing the vessel length limitation in Bristol Bay would be a big deal. Proponents argue bigger boats would be safer with more space aboard to produce better quality products. Others, however, raise concerns about the costs involved and potential for creating competitive mismatches in the fishery.

Could be a lively discussion at the Board of Fisheries.

AMCC is changing its name to ... AMCC

The Alaska Marine Conservation Council says that, come Jan. 15, it will be known as the Alaska Marine Community Coalition.

Here's a press release explaining the name change.

Juneau watch

State Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, has prefiled Senate Bill 199 titled "An Act repealing the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Limited Entry Commission and transferring its duties to the Department of Fish and Game and the office of administrative hearings."

The title is an apparent reference to the Alaska Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission.

The prefiled bill comes in advance of the next legislative session, which begins Jan. 20.

Bycatch Reduction and Research Act introduced

Here's a press release from the Alaska congressional delegation.

Southeast Chinook run forecasts released

See the numbers in this advisory announcement from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

9 reportedly rescued from grounded boat in Bering

The Anchorage Daily News has the story.