Fresh halibut all the time?

Barring a standoff between the United States and Canada, we should get the 2020 catch limits Friday from the International Pacific Halibut Commission.

Meantime, the IPHC's Conference Board has "requested the formation of an ad-hoc stakeholder working group to review options for shifting to a year-round fishery."

The Russian embargo

We've heard a lot about the trade war between the United States and China.

But another international conflict, this one involving Russia, has been crimping Alaska's seafood industry for more than five years now.

This four-page white paper from the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute details the situation.

In 2014, Russia imposed an embargo on food products from the United States and other countries as retaliation for Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.

The Russian embargo bans virtually all Alaska seafood products. Alaska seafood producers exported $61.3 million in goods to Russia in 2013, the year before the embargo, with salmon roe accounting for most of the total.

Now, here's the kicker: Although the Russian market is closed to the U.S. industry, the United States remains an open and lucrative market for Russian seafood.

A leviathan exits

The Ocean Phoenix, a 635-foot processing ship active for many years in the Bering Sea pollock fishery, recently went to scrap at Brownsville, Texas. Built in 1964 and originally used as a freighter, the Ocean Phoenix was said to be the largest fishing vessel in the United States. She worked as a "mothership" taking deliveries from trawlers. This photo shows her docked in Seattle in July 2019. The operating company has acquired a replacement ship, the 276-foot Pacific Glacier, and renamed it the Phoenix. Wesley Loy photo

Say a prayer

The U.S. Coast Guard says it medevaced a man with "severe burns" from the fishing vessel Bountiful southwest of St. Paul.

Copper River salmon forecast

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is predicting a commercial harvest this year of 771,000 sockeye salmon.

That's not great.

Driftnetters took nearly 1.3 million sockeye last year in the Copper River District.

Here's the forecast.

Vessel registration fix

State Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak, has filed House Bill 185 to exempt commercial fishing boats from a 2018 law requiring they be registered with the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles.

Troll fishery in the crosshairs

Wild Fish Conservancy, a Seattle-area conservation group, is serving notice of its intent to sue the federal government regarding "overharvest" of Chinook salmon in the Southeast Alaska troll fishery.

"It is irresponsible for NOAA to authorize this harvest in Alaska when they know it undermines efforts to restore imperiled wild Chinook populations in Washington, British Columbia, and Oregon rivers, and contributes to the starvation of endangered Southern Resident killer whales and fishing communities all along the coast," says Kurt Beardslee, the group's executive director.

More here.