Tag Archives: Cordova District Fishermen United
BOF declines to lower hatchery production levels
A proposal to lower hatchery production to its 2000 level went down in defeat at the Alaska Board of Fisheries meeting on Monday, March 4 in a 1-6 vote, after the majority of the board concluded that hatchery raised salmon were not causing undue harm to wild stocks. The decision came after extensive testimony, mostly from fishing industry activists opposed to Proposal 43, which was offered by the Fairbanks Advisory Committee to the Board of Fisheries. The board also took testimony at its Lower Cook Inlet meeting in Homer Nov. 26 through Dec. 1, but postponed any action until its Upper Cook Inlet meeting, from Feb. 23 through March 5 in Anchorage. more, >>click to read<< 13:09
Copper River salmon fishery starts slow but sees potential to ramp up
The Copper River sockeye and king salmon fishery is the first each summer, kicking off around the third week of May. Because of that, the fishermen usually land a higher price per pound both for sockeye and kings. This year, the run for the Copper is predicted to be around or below average, and like elsewhere, the kings are scarcer than in past decades. This year is also seeing the sockeye run show up later than usual. Last weekend saw daily numbers increasing passing the Miles Lake sonar on the Copper River, reaching just shy of 39,000 sockeye Sunday, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That’s the highest daily count yet and puts the total count at about 153,000, ahead of the count at the same time in the last two years. >click to read< 09:20
Jerry McCune retires as board chairman of Cordova District Fishermen United
Jerry McCune has retired as chairman of the board of Cordova District Fishermen United after 32 years with the historic fishermen’s advocacy group, and members will vote on Tuesday, May 24, on future leadership of CDFU. “Jerry has given decades of leadership and service to the commercial fishing industry and helped shape the greatest CDFU successes for us in Area E,” said CDFU Acting President Ezekiel Brown. “With his mentorship and the recent wins we’re celebrating from this year’s Board of Fish meeting outcomes, our organization is reflecting and spring boarding on Jerry’s tenure to begin a new chapter.” > click to read < 10:36
NPFMC ponders changes in the halibut catch sharing plan
When the North Pacific Fishery Management Council adopted its halibut Catch Share Plan back 2014, charter operators were granted 125% of their historic catch at low levels of abundance, with that additional 25% coming out of quota for the commercial longline sector. Commercial longliners were assured that no further uncompensated reallocations would be considered, but now federal fisheries managers are doing just that. The Halibut Coalition is urging its membership of commercial harvesters to write to the governors of Alaska, Washington and Oregon expressing their views, as the representatives of those states on the NPFMC voted in favor of considering changes to halibut allocations. >click to read< 13:41
Seine season brings ‘bright light’ to struggling fleet
In a year when the fishery was shut down for 16 days, inflicting economic pain on gillnetters, the seine season proved a bright light overall for commercial salmon harvesters, “Many of us were nervous after the 2019 drought and uncertainties with what that meant for returns in 2021,” “It’s heartbreaking to see our community continue to struggle, to know it’s impacting families, our city’s fish tax revenue, and ultimately the city and school budget.” >click to read< 20:09
With coronavirus pandemic procedures in place, Copper River salmon season ready to open
Hundreds of vessels and workers flood into Prince William Sound each May for a chance to harvest the first fresh wild king salmon of the year, followed by the famous Copper River sockeye and the broader Prince William Sound pink salmon fisheries. However, with limited road access and health care facilities, city and state officials have been coordinating with the fleet and stakeholders about how to safely allow in deckhands, captains, and processing workers from Outside without inviting the pandemic to Cordova as well. “Fishermen are very concerned and have been concerned since day one,” said Francis Leach, the executive director of the United Fishermen of Alaska. “Now that procedures have been put in place, there are a lot of questions. It’s always a learning curve. Folks are really going to have to pay attention to (the mandate).” >click to read< 14:36
Central Gulf of Alaska halibut catch limit cut
Halibut catch limits for 2020 have been trimmed overall by seven percent by the International Pacific Halibut Commission, with the Central Gulf of Alaska, Area 3A, allocated a harvest of 7.05 million pounds, down 12.53 percent from 8.06 million pounds in 2019. The largest area percentage cut was for Area CDE, the Bering Sea, where the quota was cut 15.20 percent, from 2.04 million pounds to 1.73 million pounds. Area 4A, in the Aleutians, likewise received a 14.55 percent cut, from 1.65 million pounds in 2019 to 1.41 million pounds for 2020. >click to read< 12:03
Cordova District Fishermen United scholarships send fledgling fishermen to college
Reid Williams, 18, assumed his formal education would end with high school. After years of gillnetting on his father’s boat, Williams didn’t see the point in plunking down thousands of dollars for further schooling. After all, he had already found a paying trade. There’s a lot of fishermen that just know how to fish, and I want to expand my horizons,,, Williams was awarded the 2019 Robert H. Blake Memorial Scholarship for a two-page essay in which Williams argued that the patience and industriousness he had learned gillnetting could be put to use at UAF’s College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences. >click to read< 13:29
Horrible timing
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game was Wednesday lobbying Alaska residents to buy Chitina dipnet permits to fish the Copper River even as the troubled, 2018 return of sockeye salmon to that big, muddy drainage was fading so badly that Cordova commercial fishermen pleaded to have the dipnet fishery shut down. “As of today sonar counts are well below projected counts and remain below the minimum threshold of 360,000 sockeye salmon for spawning escapements,” the Cordova District Fishermen United said in a letter to state officials. “In light of the weak early run component, restrictive closures on commercial fishing openers, and no noticeable increase in counts at the sonar currently, it is in the best interest of our sockeye runs to close the Copper River personal use and sport fisheries.” >click to read<18:26
