Herring have continued to spawn near Sitka, signaling that the commercial sac roe herring fishery could soon taper off.
Aaron Dupuis is the area management biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. In an interview with KCAW on Friday, he said the fishery was in a transition.
“We’re kind of transitioning into spawning mode for the fish,” said ADF&G area management biologist Aaron Dupuis. “We’ve been following this tremendous biomass of herring coming into the sound for the last two weeks or so, since we’ve been out on the water…And then as we get closer to spawning and then into spawning activity, we’ll see those big schools break up, thin out, hit the bottom, get into the shallows, and start spawning.”
State managers observed over 18 nautical miles of spawn during aerial surveys Friday. Spawn was concentrated from Watson Point to Harbor Point, Kasiana Island, along the causeways, along the eastern side of Kruzof Island, and along the shores of Krestof Island. 22 cumulative miles of spawn have been recorded via aerial surveys since March 30.
The state did not open the fishery to a commercial harvest on Friday, but they’re not finished yet. Dupuis said typically as spawning kicks off on the north end of the sound, the fishery shifts south.
So like the Aleutkina Bay, Cape Baranof, down to Dorothy Narrows, is kind of where we’re going to start looking next,” Dupuis said. “But if I’ve learned anything so far with herring it’s that they can surprise you.”
Around 20 seiners have been participating in this year’s fishery, less than half of the total permit holders, and three processors are participating. The state opened the fishery for this year’s first commercial harvest on March 27. As of April 3, they’d caught over 6000 tons of herring, just a fraction of the 35,000 quota allowed by the state.
