October 4, 2022 — Though autumn marks the end of the fishing seasons for herring, salmon, halibut and blackcod, there’s much afoot with changes in fisheries management when the Alaska Board of Fisheries ramps up for meetings beginning in October and running through March of 2023.
In the lives of Alaska’s proactive commercial fishermen, it’s either fishing season or meeting season.
For starters, the Board of Fisheries meets jointly with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council on Oct. 13. The agenda for the Joint Protocol Committee calls for a half day of discussions about small boat access in the state and federal Pacific cod fisheries, then reports and a rebuilding plan for beleaguered crab stocks in the Bering Sea. The meeting is open to public testimony, but the deadline for written testimony has been set for Oct. 5.
Board of Fisheries action resumes Oct. 27 and continues with meetings that stretch through March 13, as the fish panel reviews 169 proposals that could spell regulation changes in commercial fisheries across major seafood production areas in the state.
The board will begin Oct. 27 with proposals for cod at Chignik, the Bering Sea-Aleutian Islands (BSAI) and Alaska Peninsula. Beginning on Nov. 29 the board will delve into proposals pertaining to Bristol Bay salmon.
Alaska’s far west salmon topics, including the collapse of runs in the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers, will be the focus of the meetings running from Jan. 14 through Jan. 18. Salmon and other finfish will again dominate discussions at the meetings scheduled for Feb. 20 through Feb. 25.