Fish Radio
October 3, 2014
This is Fish Radio. I’m Laine Welch – Salmon season gets underway in Southeast. You heard right. More fishing updates after this —
Trollers are back on the water for winter Chinook
Credit: ADF&G
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Many Alaskans are surprised to learn that salmon fishing goes on in Southeast Alaska almost year round. As the summer season wraps up, trollers there are heading back out for winter king salmon fishery that opens October 11th. The season continues all the way through April.
Southeast’s pot shrimp season opened October 1 with a region wide harvest of about half a million pounds. That same day crabbers began dropping pots for the fall Dungeness fishery. The total Dungie catch this year could top six million pounds.
Dive fisheries for sea cucumber and urchins also got underway October first in Southeast and Kodiak.
A little over one million pounds remain for Alaska’s halibut fleet out of a nearly 15 million pound catch limit. Prices at major ports remained in the high $6 and over $7 range for fishermen. Weekly landings have been less than 500,000 pounds over the past month. The ports of Kodiak (2.25m) and Homer (2.57m) are still neck a neck with halibut landings, with Seward a distant third. Sablefish prices also are through the ceiling, topping $4.25 for under three pounders and $7.55 for seven ups.
The Alaska pollock fishery is about over in the Bering Sea. At nearly three billion pounds, that’s a lot of fish sticks! Fleets are also targeting cod, flatfish, and many other types of groundfish.
In the Central and Western Gulf, trawl, hook and line, pot boats and jig bots are targeting P-cod. Gulf trawlers are back out on the water for the final fishery of the year
The Aleutian Islands golden king crab fleet is tapping away at its six million pound quota. Catches for Bristol Bay red king crab and Bering Sea snow crab should be out any day.
Find catches for all of Alaska’s fisheries and more at www.alaskafishradio.com
Fish Radio is also brought to you by Ocean Beauty Seafoods, an Alaska corporation proudly supporting Alaska’s coastal communities and the Alaskans who depend on fishing for their livelihoods and culture. In Kodiak, I’m Laine Welch. www.oceanbeauty.com
