Tag Archives: Nat Nichols
Kodiak fishermen gearing up for biggest tanner crab season in decades
Kodiak’s tanner crab fishery opens on Sunday, Jan. 15 and it’s a whopper – this year’s harvest levels are the biggest they’ve been in nearly 40 years, and fishermen are gearing up for a big season in more ways than one. Darren Platt owns the fishing vessel Agnes Sabine. It’s a 48-foot seiner – normally, he goes out for salmon – sometimes herring – and this is his fourth season fishing for tanner crabs. He said this year, there’s been a buzz in both of Kodiak’s boat harbors. “It looks almost like pre-salmon season,” he said. “There’s a lot of boats that haven’t fished tanner crabs in a while, or maybe have never fished it and so they’re just getting geared up now. And so the docks have been pretty darn busy for December and January.” >click to read< 12:15
Tanner crab fishery to open in Kodiak for first time since 2013
Nat Nichols, Alaska Department of Fish and Game area management biologist for the Groundfish, Shellfish & Dive Fisheries, says the last opening was in 2013. He says ADF & G conducts an extensive trawl survey program between Dutch Harbor and Kodiak focused on tanner crab in the Gulf of Alaska. “This year we did 363 stations. About 200 of those are in Kodiak, so quite a few stations around Kodiak to assess tanner crab abundance.,, Meanwhile, the Dungeness crab season, which opened in May and June, closed last week. click here to read the story 17:35
