January 20, 2015 — The Bering Sea’s largest fishery opened up on Tuesday afternoon. Pollock crews are gearing up for a potential increase in their harvest — while still keeping an open mind about what the winter has in store.
Within hours of arriving in Unalaska on Tuesday morning, the crew of the Seadawn was back to work.
"We’ll just get everything on the boat and then we can start organizing it," Ron Mitchell yelled as he stacked extra nets on deck using a crane.
Once they start fishing, the Seadawn and the other vessels in the UniSea cooperative will have a little extra pollock to work with, too.The catch limit increased about 3 percent this year to 1.3 million metric tons.
But one of the fleet's biggest expenses has been getting cheaper.