Tag Archives: Prince William Sound
PWS Seine fleet reacts to low prices
Halfway through the Prince William Sound seine season, captains and crew are reacting to a dramatic drop in pink and chum salmon prices. The price updates came in the form of official letters and informal text messages from various processors this week. Grounds price for pink salmon hovers at $.23/lb with chum salmon prices following at $.20/lb. Rumors of chum price dipping below $.20/lb were also reported by fishermen. The seine fleet has seen a season patterned by frequent closures this year. Jamel Lister is a seasonal deckhand who has returned to work in the fishery for his seventeenth year, this season aboard the F/V Gorbushka. Lister said although he does pay attention to salmon markets leading up to the season, a poor forecast or low price does not deter him from returning each summer. >click to read< 12:25
Statewide commercial salmon harvest tops 14M fish
Millions of wild salmon heading for their spawning grounds in Alaska are being greeted by commercial fishermen with drift gillnets and setnets, harvesting upwards of 14 million fish through Tuesday morning, including over four million in Prince William Sound. For the Copper River District itself over 601,000 salmon were delivered to processors and the state’s central region had an overall catch of over 11.6 million fish. Preliminary data compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game put the catch through Tuesday at over 14 million fish harvested statewide, including 10.3 million sockeyes, 3.3 million chums, 331,000 pink, 46,000 Chinook, and 6,000 coho salmon. >click to read< 10:54
Disaster aid has arrived, but Western Alaska’s salmon and crab problems continue
The Alaska congressional delegation announced on Friday that the U.S. Commerce Department released the disaster aid. The money is to go to harvesters, processors and communities affected by designated disasters in salmon and crab fisheries that occurred between 2020 and 2022. For Bering Sea snow crab, signs are that the problems that led to the first-ever harvest closure, which was announced last October, will last for years. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service 2022 survey found that despite the emergence of cooler and more normal temperatures, mature male snow crab abundance was the lowest on record and mature female snow crab abundance was the third lowest on record. >click to read< 10:12
PWS harvest soars above 9M fish, statewide catch exceeds 16M salmon
Commercial harvesters in the Prince William Sound region delivered upwards of 371,340 salmon through Tuesday, June 28, while the statewide preliminary harvest exceeded 16 million fish, including deliveries in Bristol Bay, Cook Inlet, Kodiak and the Alaska Peninsula. Harvests reached almost 8% above year-to-date 2021 (2020 for pinks), led by strong sockeye harvests in the Alaska Peninsula and Bristol Bay regions, according to Sam Friedman, who is producing the McKinley Research Group weekly in-season reports on behalf of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. For Prince William Sound, harvests and the weights of salmon harvested remained below the 10-year average, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologist Jeremy Botz, in Cordova. >click to read< 09:06
Nearly $132 million allocated for Alaska fishery disasters
The U.S. Commerce Department announced on Thursday that several Alaska fisheries are eligible to share in almost $132 million of federal disaster relief. The Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers are included after a chum and king salmon collapse last year. Impacted fishermen can share in $55 million, but that is also set to be split between fishermen from Southeast Alaska, Prince William Sound and Chignik. Gov. Mike Dunleavy submitted the disaster declaration to the federal government when applying for relief. >click to read< 10:53
Wild pink salmon came in stronger than expected
Prince William Sound’s 2021 commercial salmon fishery proved challenging in the midst of a second year of the global novel coronavirus pandemic and increasing climate change, with harvesters delivering nearly 70 million salmon valued at an estimated $121.49 million. That added up to almost $72 million more than the value of last year’s commercial harvest of 25.5 million fish, according to preliminary state fisheries summaries. Humpy returns were the big surprise. Everyone came into the season a little bit skeptical because 2019 was such a poor year, but they perked up when they realized what they were seeing, Scannell said, of the odd year pink salmon run. >click to read< 09:58
Commercial Fisherman Timothy J. Moore of Homer, Alaska, has passed away
Timothy J. Moore, age 65, of Homer, Alaska, passed peacefully from this world into the loving arms of Jesus, the Great Fisher of Men on Dec. 2, 2021. After his family, Tim enjoyed hunting and sport fishing, but commercial fishing was his passion. his first fishing experience was set netting for salmon on his Uncle Pat McElroy’s sites as a skinny 13-year-old during a summer visit to Alaska in 1967. In 1991 the acquisition of the F/V Iliamna Bay allowed him to expand his herring fisheries to include Togiak and to participate in the halibut fishery during those crazy “derby” days before IFQs. The F/V Iliamna Bay was also the beginning of his Prince William Sound salmon seining career where he made many memories fishing with the family and some amazing crew. >click to read< 15:19
Boom-bust commercial salmon season doubles 2020 value
This summer was significantly better for commercial salmon fishermen in Alaska than 2020, though that success was far from evenly spread. Commercial salmon fishermen hauled in salmon valued at $643.9 million this season, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. That’s more than double the 2020 value of $295.2 million, but still a little behind the estimated 2019 value of $657.6 million. Overall, 2021 ranks fairly well in the historical averages for numbers of salmon harvested and poundage as well as in value, according to Fish and Game data. >click to read< 16:37
Prince William Sound harvests exceed 69M salmon
Late season harvesters were still pulling in coho salmon in in mid-September, with the preliminary Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s estimated harvest rising to 224,000 silvers, up from 199,000 a week ago. The Copper River district has been the biggest contributor to the coho catch to date, with 132,462 fish caught in drift gillnets, followed by 33,607 fish brought in Eastern Prince William Sound purse seiners and 16,436 fish from Prince William Sound Southwestern purse seiners, according to ADF&G updates. The average weight of Copper River,,, >click to read< 07:48
Prince William Sound harvest tops 67M salmon
Commercial harvesters wished they could have had more fishing time at the beginning of the season, but by the end of the season it certainly wasn’t a disaster, said Chelsea Haisman, executive director of Cordova District Fishermen United. “Overall, we are very happy with the way the seine season went,” she said. “Pink catches were very high. We are grateful and hoping for a strong finish with the cohos.” Still, the same amount of fish early on in the season holds much higher value, said Haisman, echoing the refrain of gillnetters who did not get openers for the famed Copper River sockeye salmon early on in the season when prices were higher. “Especially considering we exceeded the (Alaska Department of) Fish and Game in-river goal by over 100,000 fish,” she said. “We lost economic opportunity for the community.” >click to read< 18:14
Kenai River sockeye over-escape by 1M, Kotzebue’s 2021 chum season to wrap up, Big PWS Humpy Harvest
Those numbers concern fishermen like Joe Dragseth, a drift-netter in Kenai. He said he worries about the health of the river. And, he said, it’s unfair commercial fishermen have been restricted while so many fish have made it up the river. “Basically, they’re taking the living away from us,” he said. >click to read< – Kotzebue’s 2021 chum salmon season to wrap up with another low catch – “It hasn’t been very good,” said Karen Gillis, manager of the Copper River Seafoods processing plant in Kotzebue. It’s one of two commercial chum salmon buyers in town this year. >click to read< – Prince William Sound Humpy harvest is 3rd largest of decade – “The highlight of this season has been the wild stocks returning stronger than anticipated, given the uncertainty about spawning success from the 2019 parent year that was assumed to be negatively impacted by drought conditions,” said Heather Scannell, area management seine biologist in Cordova for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. >click to read< 14:35
Humpy surge boosts Prince William Sound harvest to 54.3M
For Prince William Sound alone the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s preliminary harvest report as of Wednesday, Aug. 18, stood at 50.4 million humpies, up from 31.9 million humpies just a week earlier, when the overall PWS commercial harvest totaled 39.8 million fish. Deliveries to PWS processors also reached a cumulative total of 2.6 million chums, 1.3 million sockeyes, 39,000 cohos and 7,000 Chinook salmon.,, In the PWS seine fisheries the egg take underway at the Valdez Fisheries Development Association was 38% complete as of Aug. 17. The Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corp. reported good run entry at Wally Noerenberg Hatchery and minimal run entry at the Armin F. Koernig and Cannery Creek hatcheries. Future fishing opportunities targeting PWSAC enhanced pink salmon would be contingent on run entry and broodstock acquisition, biologists said. >click to read< 11:22
Humpy harvest pushes Prince William Sound catch to 39.8M
Purse seine fishing for pink salmon continues in earnest in Prince William Sound, with the humpy catch alone through Wednesday, Aug. 11 reaching nearly 36 million fish and an overall commercial salmon harvest at 39.8 million fish. That’s up from 31.9 million pinks and an overall Prince William Sound harvest of 35.7 million fish as of a week earlier. Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials noted that the purse seine fishery in the eastern section of Prince William Sound alone had harvested over 21 million humpies, while in the northern section the humpy catch was 4.9 million fish. >click to read<08:49
Prince William Sound catch jumps to 35.7M fish
Commercial harvests in Prince William Sound have reached over 35.7 million fish, including nearly 32 million pink salmon, up by over 5 million fish from a week earlier, according to the state’s latest preliminary commercial harvest reports. As of Wednesday, Aug. 4, that report showed harvesters delivering to processors in Prince William Sound 31.9 million pink salmon, 2.5 million chums, 1.3 million sockeye, 11,000 cohos and 7,000 Chinooks. The biggest overall contributor to the harvest to date is the Prince William Sound general seine fishery, >click to read< 09:12
Prince William Sound coho, chum, sockeye harvests still rising
Even as the 2020 season is winding down, the catch of coho, chum and sockeye salmon is rising in Prince William Sound. Preliminary statewide harvest numbers compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game showed that as of Wednesday, Sept. 2, the commercial catch for Prince William Sound had reached 24.3 million salmon, including some 21.3 pink, 1.9 million chum, 937,000 sockeye, 130,000 coho and 4,000 Chinook. The latest figures showed a boost of 95,000 humpies, 30,000 coho and 1,000 sockeyes since ADF&G’s Sept. 1 preliminary report. The Copper River District meanwhile was open for a 24-hour commercial fishing period on Thursday, Sept. 3. >click to read< 19:12
Around The World: Fishing For Cordova Salmon
Located on Prince William Sound in southeast Alaska and framed by the Chugach Mountain Range, Cordova, AK, was home to Eyak native peoples when named “Puerto Cordova” after a Spanish admiral by explorer Salvador Fidalgo in 1790. In 1886 the New England Fish Orca Cannery was built three miles north of present-day Cordova. It at one time processed most of Prince William Sound’s salmon harvest and employed hundreds of workers. It remained in operation until 1986.,, Priced at about $175,000 apiece, around 500 salmon fishing permits are issued every year in Cordova. They are divided into three categories: drift gillnets, set gillnets, and purse seines. photos, >click to read<, To view past articles and pictures, go to www.DaveGibsonImages.com. 14:17
Prince William Sound harvest nears 19M salmon
Purse seine and drift gillnet harvests of salmon continue in earnest this week in Prince William Sound,,, The five year even year average for humpies through this date is 29 million fish. where the overall harvest has jumped from 11.2 million to 20.5 million salmon in a week, including some 17.6 million humpies. ADF&G’s Charlie Russell in Cordova said wild stocks of pinks this year have performed above average and will likely total some 6 million to 7 million fish, while hatcheries are likely this year to get about 50 percent of their forecast. PWS harvests of sockeye salmon rose from 902,000 a week ago to 924,000 on Aug. 12, while overall harvest totals for Chinook chum and coho salmon showed no significant growth. >click to read< 11:07
Alaska and B.C.’s salmon runs expected to be worst ever recorded
Salmon returns on the west coast look bleak this year. Alaska’s salmon returns have been so poor that some communities already are claiming fishery disasters. The socket salmon run on B.C.’s Fraser River is expected to be the worst ever recorded,, in Alaska, the Cordova City Council passed a resolution last week, asking the state to declare disasters for both the 2018 Copper River sockeye and chinook salmon runs and the 2020 sockeye, chum and chinook runs at the Copper River and Prince William Sound,, The Pacific Salmon Commission (PSC) says this year may turn out to be the worst for sockeye salmon in the Fraser River since tracking began in 1893, >click to read< 12:56
Humpy harvest in PWS surges to exceed 12M fish
Harvests of over 9 million pink salmon over the past week have pushed Alaska’s yearly total to over 25 million fish, including upwards of 12 million humpies caught in Prince William Sound. Alaska Department of Fish and Game finfish area management biologists in Cordova said the cumulative pink salmon harvest in the Sound through Aug. 1 alone was estimated at 10.5 million common property fish and 1.5 cost recovery fish. Preliminary commercial salmon harvest data compiled by ADF&G through Tuesday, Aug. 4, put the total commercial salmon harvest in Prince William Sound at 11.2 million fish, including 12.3 million pink, 1.9 million chum, 902,000 sockeye, 4,000 coho and 4,000 king salmon. >click to read< 19:03
Humpy catch on the rise – ADF&G data shows PWS salmon harvest at over 9.4M fish
An estimated 800,000 were harvested in Prince William Sound on Sunday, July 19, boosting the cumulative pink salmon harvest to an estimated 5.6 million common property fish, and the overall estimated commercial catch for the fishery to 9.4 million salmon. Still fishery managers in the Cordova office of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said that the Valdez Fisheries Development Association needs some 409,000 humpies for brood stock and has recommended a closure within Port Valdez. >click to read< 09:57
Salmon harvest coming in below forecast
Commercial harvests of Alaska’s iconic salmon are generally below expectation so far this season, particularly in the Copper River, where the preliminary catch to date includes 81,228 reds, 5,815 Chinooks and 1,296 chums. And overall for the drift gillnet harvesters and purse seiners in Prince William Sound, so far it is a smaller run that forecast, with a preliminary collective harvest of some 736,453 fish. That’s according to statewide data compiled by biologists with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, who update their preliminary harvest report daily and post. >click to read< 09:42
It aint looking good – Low prices, weak run hammer Copper River fishermen
Fishermen headed into the 2020 season knew it would be different, but in the weeks since the Copper River District opened on March 14, low prices and a weak run has dealt a one-two punch to fishermen. “The 2020 gillnet season for the Copper River and Prince William Sound is definitely the worst one I’ve experienced so far,” Mike Mickelson, a Cordova based fisherman, said. “The managers just have us closed for the Copper River fishery because they’re worried about getting escapement, >click to read< 10:33
The Mayor of Kiniklik
Time had slipped by while studying each of the 118 Memorial Plaques attached to the railings that surround Joan Bugbee Jackson’s inspiring statute of a rain-battered fisherman steering into heavy seas. Having lived in Cordova all my life and worked on tenders or crewed on seine boats for years dating back to the early 1960s, it was hard not to be lost in memories inspired by these tributes to so many famous local fishermen. Each plaque had a story to tell, and indeed, as is often the case with those who go to the sea, each of the bygone was a master storyteller. Many of the plaques had tidbits I did not know. Yet the plaque that fascinated me the most was a tribute to The Mayor of Kiniklik. No, Cliff Alber had not been elected to this office. The term is used in this context to signify a fisherman who spends his whole season at one particular spot, learning the secret nuances of time, tide, currents and hidden underwater obstacles, as well as their impact on the flow of salmon in that area. photo ‘s, >click to read< 10:35
Third time was the charm
Light winds, fog and rain spread over Prince William Sound on the eve of a 12-hour Memorial Day fishery, then turned overcast during the holiday, as the commercial fishing crews netted some 1,467 Chinook and 33,752 sockeye salmon. The catch boosted the total harvest to date to an estimated 45,537 fish, including 4,935 kings and 39,823 red salmon, well over five times the individual catches on May 14 and May 18. The first two 12-hour openers were so slow that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game cancelled fishing for the third opener on May 21. Now the fishery appears to be picking up speed. “It’s still not good,” said veteran harvester Jerry McCune,“We’re getting further behind every day. Hopefully things will pick up in June.” >click to read< 17:15
After cancellation of the third Copper River period, ADF&G okayed a 12-hour opener on Memorial Day
Light winds, fog and rain spread over Prince William Sound as veteran harvester Bill Webber headed out to sea on the eve of the Memorial Day opener for the famed Copper River wild salmon fishery, hoping perhaps that the third time’s the charm. The third time, that is, because the first opener on May 14, and the second opener on May 18 proved so below the forecast that Alaska Department of Fish and Game biologists halted the anticipated third opener on May 21, then decided on May 22 to go ahead with a third 12-hour opener on Monday, May 25. “The wind isn’t bad, maybe 15 miles an hour, a little foggy, a little rainy,” said Webber, owner of direct-to-consumer Paradigm Seafoods, from the helm of his boat, >click to read< 10:57
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
How one fisherman brings his wild salmon catch from Alaska to Missouri
Sean Guffey was studying communications at the University of Michigan when he drove to Alaska during the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Soon, he was on a fishing boat with scientists studying the impact of the spill. As he watched, Guffey learned from their observations and concerns about wildlife. Every year since, he has found his way back to Alaska. Today, he is the captain of Watermen, a boat docked in Bristol Bay. And every summer, he catches wild sockeye salmon and brings it back to Missouri to sell. photos, >click to read< 17:22
Feb. 14 deadline for bids on Tanner crab test fishery
State fisheries officials have set a Feb. 14 deadline for bids to participate in a Prince William Sound test fishery from Feb. 22 through April 7, to harvest up to 30,000 pounds of Tanner crab. Six lots of up to 5,000 pounds each are available in defined areas of the Northern and Hinchinbrook districts, Bids will be accepted for six individual lots for a maximum of 5,000 pounds each, at a minimum bid price of 35 cents a pound, with the contract to be awarded to the highest bidders for each lot. Vessel owners are welcome to bid on more than one lot. >click to read< 16:38
FISH FACTOR: First checks finally set for 2016 pink salmon disaster
It’s been a long time coming but payments should soon be in hand for Alaska fishermen, processors and coastal communities hurt by the 2016 pink salmon run failure, the worst in 40 years. Congress OK’d more than $56 million in federal relief in 2017, but the authorization to cut the money loose languished on NOAA desks in D.C. for more than two years. The payouts got delayed again last October,,, >click to read< 17:18