Tag Archives: Megan Corazza
‘Huge disaster’: Historically weak pink salmon runs strain Alaska’s seine fishermen
Expectations were low this year for the pink salmon runs that power Prince William Sound’s commercial fishing industry. But no one expected them to be as bad as they’ve been. With just a few weeks left in the season, the sound’s seine fleet has harvested just one-fourth the number of pinks that it would have caught by now in a typical year. The small runs have forced 
managers to close fishing for longer periods than usual. And even during openers, fishermen are reporting abysmal harvests. Some have quit early. Others are thinking about new jobs.” It is incredibly slow,” said Megan Corazza, a Homer-based seine fisherman who has fished in the sound for more than two decades. “It is the worst year I have ever seen with my own operation.” It’s a big blow to an industry already reeling from a global market crisis that sent dock prices plummeting last year. Photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 09:31
Fishy chatter: The evolution of fishing captains’ radio groups
I had 54 cents in my bank account when I bought my own commercial fishing operation at age 20. I scrawled my signature on a six-figure loan, made it through college finals and came home to my first seine boat, the cabin full of cardboard boxes overflowing with mildewed manuals about everything from Freon refrigeration to Marco powerblocks. My father gave me two treasures to start the season: an enormous binder full of Xeroxed charts showing a lifetime of accumulated fishing knowledge, and a VHF radio with a list of scrambler codes to install so I could talk to our radio group. Radio groups are a long tradition in Alaska’s commercial fishing community. Click here to read the story 13:45
