January 10, 2020 — A small cod fishery will occur in Gulf of Alaska state waters (out to three miles) for 2020, putting to rest speculation that no cod would be coming out of the Gulf next year.
A catch quota of about 5.6 million pounds, down from 10.2 million pounds, will be split among five regions: Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet, Kodiak, Chignik, and the South Alaska Peninsula, with limitations on gear and staggered openers.
Read the full story from National Fisherman at Seafood Source
January 10, 2020 — On the lumbering journey through squally seas off the Alaska Peninsula, most of the seven crab fishermen aboard the Scandies Rose were resting in bunks on New Year’s Eve when the boat suddenly began listing to the starboard side.
The crew rushed to the cramped wheelhouse and quickly began distributing survival suits, but before they could fully get them on, the boat pitched over so far that they were sliding along the floor. Then the power went out. Two of the crewmen, Dean Gribble Jr. and Jon Lawler, managed to pull themselves out onto the tilted deck, where, through the murk of a north Pacific night, the reality of their situation became clear.
The boat was being tossed in every direction by 20-foot swells, and was sinking fast. Gale-force winds were crusting the ship’s surfaces with ice. Any chance of rescue was 170 storm-churned miles away.
Mr. Gribble could see that he and his shipmate did not have long to live. He shouted to Mr. Lawler over the din of wind and groaning steel, “I wonder what everyone else is doing for New Year’s Eve.”
January 9, 2020 — SEAFOOD NEWS — Last winter scientists and Alaskan fishermen agreed to launch a pilot study to develop methods for tagging cod on active commercial fishing vessels in the Aleutian Island.
Satellite tags had never been used on Pacific cod. No one had recorded seasonal movements of cod in the Aleutian Islands. This was the first time industry, scientists, and the fishing community all took part in the research.
January 7, 2020 — A group of Alaska pollock industry officials arrived earlier this week in Shanghai for a 10-day visit to China as an exploratory trip to appraise opportunities in the country, according to a Genuine Alaska Pollock Producers (GAPP) press release.
The tour, sponsored in large part by a grant from the Emerging Market Department of the United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, will also include stops in Qingdao and Beijing.
January 6, 2020 — The sinking of the crab boat Scandies Rose, which left five crew members presumed dead off the Alaska Peninsula on New Year’s Eve, comes after a decades-long push to make commercial fishing in Alaska safer. Regulation changes have helped drive more safety measures for the historically lucrative industry, but some dangers remain inherent, said Scott Wilwert, the commercial fishing vessel safety coordinator for the Coast Guard in Alaska.
“The hazards are endless,” Wilwert said. Equipment, distance from other boats and harrowing weather all pose dangers.
The sinking of the 130-foot Scandies Rose sent a shock wave through Alaska’s commercial fishing industry, especially among those in the relatively small group that fishes the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska.
Greg Alexander, a veteran of those waters, was a close friend of Scandies Rose captain Gary Cobban Jr. He said Cobban Jr. was a “first-class” captain with a sterling safety reputation who ran with an experienced crew.
January 3, 2020 — Alaska’s fisheries in 2019 had several bright spots, yet many areas of concern will return into the next year.
Once again the sockeye fishery in Bristol Bay was the shining star of the commercial sector. Fishermen caught Bristol Bay’s 2 billionth sockeye salmon since records were first kept. The in-shore run of 57 million fish clocked in at the fourth-largest run on the record books, but the ex-vessel value of $306 million ranks as the best of all time.
“We had really good fisheries out in Bristol Bay,” ADF&G Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said. “In Southeast Alaska we were able to meet all our treaty obligations, provide commercial fishing opportunity and most importantly protect all our stocks of concern in Southeast Alaska.”
2019 brought a mixed bag for sport fishermen in Southcentral.
The early run sockeye on the Kenai and Russian River quickly surpassed escapement goals even with the ADF&G increasing bag limits and opening areas usually closed to fishing. At one point, anglers could keep nine daily and have 18 in possession.
“We’ve had other years where we went up to six and 12 daily, but we’ve never had it go up that high. We just had a tremendous return of sockeye, and we use that return to provide opportunities for Alaskans and visitors to our state,” Vincent-Lang said.
Even with additional limit increases for late-run Kenai River and Resurrection Bay sockeye, the 2019 season was tarnished by two major events.
The Swan Lake Fire loomed over of much of the Alaskan summer, and sportfishing didn’t escape the impacts. The Upper Kenai River was temporarily closed for public safety and firefighting efforts during a time period that is one of the most important of the year for trout fishing guides on the Peninsula.
January 3, 2020 — Five crew members are feared dead after a crab fishing vessel sank in the frigid waters off Alaska. The Coast Guard announced Wednesday that it had called off the search for those working in one of the most dangerous industries in the U.S.
Two other crew members were rescued after the disaster Tuesday, telling authorities they were the only ones who made it into a life raft, the Anchorage Daily News reported. A press release from the Coast Guard identified them as Dean Gribble Jr. and John Lawler. They were hypothermic and have since been released from a hospital.
The Coast Guard also identified the five crew members who remain missing: Gary Cobban Jr., David Lee Cobban, Arthur Ganacias, Brock Rainey, and Seth Rousseau-Gano. The military branch added that it used helicopters, planes and a boat to look for the missing crew members for 20 hours before calling off the search, because they were not likely to have survived.
“The decision to suspend an active search and rescue case is never easy, and it’s only made after careful consideration of a myriad of factors,” said Rear Admiral Matthew Bell, commander of the 17th district. “Our deepest condolences to the friends and families impacted by this tragedy.”
January 2, 2020 — After a 20-hour search covering 1,400 square miles, the Coast Guard called off a search for five people who were missing after the fishing boat they were on sank off Alaska, officials said.
The search for the missing crew members was suspended at 6:08 p.m. local time on Wednesday, “after exhausting all leads and careful consideration of survival probability,” according to a statement released early Thursday morning.
“The decision to suspend an active search and rescue case is never easy, and it’s only made after careful consideration of a myriad of factors,” said Rear Adm. Matthew Bell, the 17th District Commander. “Our deepest condolences to the friends and families impacted by this tragedy.”
Two crew members were rescued after the boat, a 130-foot-long crab fishing vessel called the Scandies Rose, sank near Sutwik Island around 10 p.m. on Tuesday with seven aboard, the Coast Guard said in an statement.
They were rescued from a life raft by a Coast Guard helicopter, officials said.
The crew members were taken to a hospital and were in stable condition, said Petty Officer Second Class Melissa McKenzie of the 17th District.
December 31, 2019 — Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, are getting smaller, and a team of scientists at the University of Washington think they know why. A new study says killer whales might be behind Chinook’s declining size.
Chinook salmon are an important part of life in Southeast Alaska. Part of the prized fish’s value is its size. Chinook are the largest Pacific salmon.
But in the last two years, returns have been low. Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg all saw their king salmon derbies cancelled in 2018 and 2019. And forecasts for 2020 don’t look much better.
But it’s not just their numbers that are declining.
University of Washington researcher Jan Ohlberger published a paper last year that shows Chinook are getting smaller, too. Up to 10 percent smaller.
That discovery intrigued the researcher.
“The question is, what is the cause of that?” said Ohlberger in a recent phone interview.
A causal claim is difficult to make. Correlation, of course, doesn’t always imply causation.
December 30, 2019 — It seems that at election time, our candidates will do everything they can to show themselves as big proponents of our fisheries, posing as lovers of salmon, with pictures of themselves splashed across the media holding a king or coho, while touting our commercial and sport fishing industries. Yet once election season is over, our amazing natural resources — our salmon especially — seem to be all but forgotten, slipping back into the far reaches of memory, taking a second seat to all other issues, a neglected priority.
This is too bad, because as anyone who is aware of the history of once great fisheries around the world knows, ours are but a few of the last great remaining intact salmon runs. Cook Inlet- sized populations were once the norm throughout Europe, as were runs far into the 1800’s along the northeastern seaboard of the United States. Much more recently, over the past 50 years, 300 documented runs of wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest have met their demise, many of these during our lifetime.
With current changes, such as the very real prospect of Pebble Mine, and with the lifting of restrictions on the discharge of pollutants on both a state and federal level, there is no reason to believe this will not eventually be the case here in Alaska, as well, that our salmon will not face the same fate as those around the world. We need to hold our politicians’ feet to the fire and demand that they adhere to what they say when running for office. Finally, stop just paying lip service to our salmon and adopt a “fish-first” policy.