2024 was a perfect storm for king salmon – or chinook – fishing in Southeast Alaska. The sport fishery, driven primarily by guided nonresidents, exceeded its allocation of kings for the second year in a row, and the overage was deducted from the commercial troll allocation. Hence, there was no second commercial troll opening for kings last August.

Meanwhile, resident sport anglers were caught in the middle, and they couldn’t retain kings in August, either. This was frustrating for many, since resident sport fishing for kings in Southeast is more or less a subsistence fishery, important to filling freezers for the winter.

Enter Proposal 109, penned by Sitka troller Jacquie Foss, which would give Fish & Game the authority to manage these competing interests on the fly, during the season, by dialing up or ratcheting down bag limits for nonresidents, while trying to preserve a stable, season-long bag limit for residents, and maintaining the three-decade old 80/20 allocation split between commercial and sport harvesters.

Longtime Sitka troller Jeff Farvour supported the proposal, saying his industry had no way to recover the losses from the last two years.

“The 2023 and ‘24 sport overages, driven by nonresident angler harvest, push the sport fishery to exceed its allocation by over 30,000 fish,” said Farvour. “This overage was deducted from the trip from the troll fishery at a cost of $2.2 million in ex-vessel value, which is about $4.4 million in first wholesale value.”

Linda Behnken, another Sitka troller and the director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, also believed 109 would stabilize the Southeast king fisheries.

“In recent years, one sector, the guided nonresident sport sector, has exceeded its allocation and preempted other sectors,” she said. “That is the problem we ask you to solve.”

Behnken asked the board to preserve the historic 80/20 split, and to give the Department of Fish & Game the tools to accomplish that. “No sector should be rewarded for allocation overages,” she said.

The board also heard compelling testimony from the charter sector, particularly arguments about the downstream economic benefits to communities and the region from out-of-state sport fishermen who book expensive trips to lodges. Board member Greg Svendson, an ardent sportsman, focused on this math, even though he didn’t quite have the vocabulary.

“The sports fishery brings in six times to the economy that the trawl fishery brings in,” said Svedson, making the classic trawl/troll substitution, common among those unfamiliar with Southeast’s fisheries.  “Trawl… troll, I’m sorry, I got it. Troll, trawl:  they’re close together. I know the difference as all you do too. So anyway, to continue on, the sports fishery brings in six times more to the economy than the troll fishery, yet the troll gets four times as many fish. I find this hard. You know, the fish belong to all of us.”

The board’s middle-of-the-road solution was to not lean too far into the positions of the sport or commercial industries, and instead to find a way to keep sport fishing open for residents for the entire season. Board chair Märit Carlson-Van Dort  offered an amendment adjusting the 80/20 split to 75/25, to ensure that there would be enough kings on the sport side for residents. 

“So the intention with the language as it stands right now was to provide the Department that flexibility to manage to primarily, first and foremost, a resident priority,” she said.

Board member Mike Wood, a commercial set-netter from Talkeetna, proposed amending the split yet again to 77/23. Wood’s amendment passed, over the objection of board vice-chair Tom Carpenter, a commercial fisherman from Cordova.

“What it comes down to for me is this: there will be a substantial management change based on the language associated with these two numbers,” Carpenter said. “I do not feel that this three-percent buffer is going to guarantee the residents a king salmon priority.”

Dropping another three-percent from their allocation of  king salmon was an unwelcome development for the Southeast commercial troll fleet. The guided sport industry would not be particularly happy with a three-percent increase that was created for the benefit of residents.

To board member Curtis Chamberlain, the deal sounded like a win.

“I’ve been through about 500 to 1,000 mediations over the course of my career, and every mediator will tell you that he’s done a good job if both sides walk away equally unhappy,” said Chamberlain. “And to Mr. Wood and Ms. Carlson-Van Dort, based on the discussions I’ve had with everyone in the crowd following this, great job!”

Chamberlain voted in favor. Carpenter and Gerad Godfrey opposed. Proposal 109 passed the Board of Fish 5-2. The new regulations will take effect this year.

Although Sitka Sound Industries proposed hauling out boats on a hydraulic trailer similar to the one pictured here, board members preferred a plan that offered a 300-ton travelift. (GPIP image/SSI proposal)

A proposal for a new marine haul out and boatyard is on its way to the Sitka Assembly, for consideration in May.

The board of the Gary Paxton Industrial Park on Monday (4-27-20) evaluated a pair of competing proposals for a new marine services center at the park, and sent the high scorer on to city hall. Board members, working under a fast timeline, hope the city will refine the plan before committing to it.

Based on the relatively low scores, the park board wasn’t exactly dazzled by the proposals: Although both proposers had extensive experience in marine industries, neither had any previous experience in either managing — or working for — a haul out and boatyard. And, neither was bringing much capital with them, instead relying on the city to bankroll the early investment in equipment.

Shipwright Jeremy Serka, testifying from the public, thought the proposals were inadequate.

“They’re not focused,” he said. “There’s no engineering here. There’s nothing there. And the fact that one of these has to be accepted — in its current form — is not enough for me, and frankly for anybody else in the marine trades.”

The main difference between the two proposals was the equipment: Sitka Sound Industries, fronted by Baker Hensley and Mark Quinn, planned to purchase a 60-ton hydraulic boat trailer, which could haul out boats up to 60-feet long — most, but not all of the Sitka fleet. WC Enterprises, managed by Kelly Warren and Dan Cooper, would use a 300-ton travelift, which might actually be too big for many of Sitka’s mid- and small-sized fishing vessels.

See both proposals in the April 27, 2020, Gary Paxton Industrial Park board packet.

This was a problem for Linda Behnken, the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen’s Association, in her public testimony.

“The research we had done so far said a big hoist, that the big hoist just can’t safely, easily work with small vessels,” Behnken said. “And since that’s such a key piece of the objective of this yard is that it efficiently service the small-boat fleet that’s the heart and soul of Sitka’s fleet. You need to know the answer to that question before you eliminate the other proposal from moving ahead.”

Jeff Farvour, a member of the public who has served on a task force exploring the haul out issue, asked if the process were too rushed to meet somewhere in the middle.

“I very much appreciate the two proposals,” said Farvour. “I think they complement each other. But I think this needs some more planning. If you have to slow this down to do this right, I think that’s more important than possibly moving too quickly forward.”

The industrial park board has been moving on a fast timeline, after Sitka’s lone haul out, Halibut Point Marine, announced that it would be closing down within the next two years.

Board member Mike Johnson reminded everyone that the board was intentionally casting a wide net.

“We were more or less asked to create a document that was pretty broad, and not well-defined, so that we could mine up more ideas and not discourage potential bidders from putting in a proposal,” said Johnson.

Johnson, along with other board members, scored the Warren-Cooper proposal slightly above the one written by Hensley and Quinn, saying that if the 300-ton hoist did not adequately serve the Sitka fleet, they’d have to buy a relatively inexpensive hydraulic trailer, or risk going out of business.

Johnson said that the Sitka Assembly would likely do much more work to “dial in” the plan.

The motion to accept the WC Enterprises proposal passed unanimously. The Sitka Assembly is expected to take up the matter in May.

Sitka’s ANB Harbor will remain full for more of the year, as fishing for kings will be scaled back this season, especially in the late winter and spring. But the Board of Fish “action plan” for chinook (RC422) has one upside: Summer trolling will open as usual on July 1, with a second opener likely in August. (KCAW file photo)

There will be a lot less fishing for king salmon in Southeast in the coming season, after the Alaska Board of Fisheries took dramatic steps to protect dwindling chinook returns to the region’s major river systems.

Before wrapping up its 13-day meeting in Sitka on Tuesday (1-23-18) the Board of Fish passed an “action plan” intended to reverse the downward spiral in Alaska’s wild king salmon. The plan targets 3 primary rivers — or stocks of concern — but leaves the door open for similar conservation measures elsewhere, should they become necessary.

Downloadable audio.

Note: Some of the area and time restrictions on fishing — especially on inside waters — also affect sport and subsistence harvesters of king salmon. We’ll post links to reporting on those issues as the stories become available.

The big hit for commercial trollers is ending the winter season a full six weeks early, on March 15. It’s hard to state the economic impact on trollers — each one a small, often family-owned business — on losing a prime opportunity to harvest a bedrock species that is currently earning them close to $13 a pound.

But we’ll come back to that.

The “action plan” adopted by the Board of Fish — known formally as RC422 — includes language that the steep conservation measures spelled out for the coming year for the Chilkat, Unuk, and King Salmon rivers — where king salmon stocks have fallen precipitously — should also apply to the Taku, Stikine, and Situk rivers which are not yet considered “stocks of concern.”

Just the opening paragraph of the action plan — the preamble — touched off a flurry of accusations that the Department of Fish & Game was going too far.

Board member Robert Ruffner initially thought the preamble was a bad idea, but became convinced that the Taku, Stikine, and Situk were not headed in the right direction.

The preamble language is a bit of a warning shot across the bow — but at least it’s across the bow of a fleet that will be fishing.

“We could have an action plan here today that said none of you get to go fishing at all — for anything — and we’re still not going to meet escapement goals.”

The Board also took some heat for including some language in the preamble about the Pacific Salmon Treaty, which many fishermen consider an unrelated issue to the current conservation crisis. The Pacific Salmon Treaty deals with chinook moving across the international boundary, say, a king that was hatched in a river in British Columbia, but is caught in Alaskan waters. It’s a really complicated agreement — but that’s precisely why Deputy Commissioner of Fish & Game Charlie Swanton thought it was important to incorporate it into the action plan.

“34 chinook salmon stocks in Southeast Alaska, a handful that are recognized as part of the treaty, and several that are in stock of concern status. We’re going to do the job that we’ve got to do relative to balancing all of those things and see if we can’t meet our escapement objectives and pull ourselves out of this.”

So the action plan is really a manual for the state to implement significant fishing restrictions on the stocks of concern, and to take whatever other steps may be necessary — by emergency order — to pump the brakes on catching kings headed for other rivers.

It’s a huge worry for commercial trollers.

“I think staying in business is still a question mark,” said Jeff Farvour.

Jeff Farvour began his career as a deckhand in Sitka. He’s worked his way up through a wooden troller to a larger fiberglass boat which picked up on the very day last season when Fish & Game announced that there would be no second king opener in the summer.

The action plan will be a bitter pill.

“I’m confident it will help us avoid the Southeast wild stocks we’re trying to avoid. I think it’s a good plan in that respect. But as far as the financial end of it, it’s yet to be seen. We’re a year-round king salmon fishery, with some coho opportunity and a chum fishery in the summer. But it’s really that king salmon that makes it happen for Southeast.”

Farvour and his fellow trollers want the king salmon fishery to recover, but it’s going to take a while. Salmon trolling remains one of Alaska’s few limited-entry fisheries where young people can buy in on savings, rather than taking out huge loans — and Farvour’s concerned about them.

Troller Tad Fujioka also sees an economic problem in the action plan: Losing six weeks of winter trolling means a loss of 20-30 percent of their income for some fishermen, but residents of coastal waters — like Sitka — can still pull together decent season fishing out on the ocean on tolerable winter days, and during the brief summer opener.

Elsewhere, it’s going to be difficult make it, especially when the action plan closes down fishing completely in the places like the Upper Lynn, Behm, and Seymour canals, and will likely place significant restrictions on much of Chatham Strait, Icy Strait, and Frederick Sound.

Fujioka feels trollers who fish inside waters are bearing a disproportionate share of the conservation burden.

“I’m particularly concerned about the effect this is going to have on the smaller communities, Kake, Angoon, Hoonah. Small boats in the small communities are particularly dependent on the spring and late-winter fisheries.”

But Fujioka, like Farvour, recognizes that it’s critical to allow as many wild kings to return to Southeast’s rivers as possible.

“It’s unfortunate that the biology of the stocks made it such that it had to be this way.”

Note 1-30-18: This story was amended to reflect Tad Fujioka’s concerns over the six-week closure of winter trolling — not spring trolling, as originally reported. Also, he believes the potential closures in Chatham and Icy straits, and Frederick Sound, are more economically harmful to Kake, Angoon, and Hoonah, rather than closures in Seymour and North Behm canals where “little if any trolling has occurred… since the 1970s.”

Commissioners heard data supporting increased halibut harvests in 6 of 8 sub-areas in the Gulf of Alaska.

Commercial and sport fishing fleets in some parts of Alaska will be allowed to harvest more fish, under recommendations presented to the International Pacific Halibut Commission.

Commissioners listened to the reports of staff biologists at their interim meeting in Seattle Tuesday morning (12-1-15).

Downloadable audio.

The interim meeting of the International Pacific Halibut Commission is our first look at the huge volume of data the IPHC collects that informs a big decision coming next January: How much halibut will be available for harvest from the coast of Oregon to the Bering Sea.

For halibut users in Southeast Alaska, the number could be ticking up — maybe 8-percent, or by over 300,000 pounds.

In Southcentral Alaska, though, the trend is the other direction — the commercial and sport fleets may see their harvests reduced by 7-percent, or three-quarters of a million pounds.

Overall, IPHC staff will recommend reducing harvest in the Gulf of Alaska by around 2 million pounds. From just over 29 million pounds in 2015, to around 27 million pounds in 2016.

Southcentral has had the lion’s share of the halibut harvest over the last decade or so.

Ian Stewart is a staff scientist for the commission.

“We’ve seen some fairly big changes in how the stock is distributed, certainly over the last 16 years, we’ve seen a very large change in that distribution, from being heavily weighted toward much of the stock being in western areas, to much of the stock being in eastern areas. Area 2 particularly.”

Area 2 is how the IPHC defines the Pacific Coast, from Oregon to Yakutat. Area 3 is the Central Gulf coast, including Kodiak and going as far as Unalaska. Area 4 is the outer Aleutian Islands and the Bering Sea. And these three main areas are divided into a total of 8 sub-areas. Next season, commission scientists expect there will more halibut in three-quarters of the 8 areas.

The slight rebound of halibut stocks in Area 2 remains a mystery. Halibut fishing was heavily concentrated here in the 20th century, and later moved across the gulf. Bottom trawlers don’t fish in Area 2, so wasted halibut — or bycatch — is less of a problem.

Stewart didn’t have a complete explanation.

“So across Area 2 we’ve seen some of the more positive changes in the biology — as well as the catch rates. I don’t know whether that’s because the fish that are growing faster and are generally more productive tend to move to Area 2 with greater frequency, or whether the fish in Area 2 tend to be more productive because of better growing conditions.”

The fact that there are generally more halibut available in Area 2 is good news for Southeast fishermen. Sitka longliner Jeff Farvour tuned in the webcast of the Seattle meeting. In an interview afterwards, he sounded hopeful.

“Overall on a coast-wide level, it looks like things have stabilized. They’re still pretty average — below average — on a historical perspective, but it’s always good to see some stability. And even some growth.”

Farvour is a long-time advocate for the commercial halibut fleet, and been in the teeth of allocation battles. But he says he’s glad to see the 30-percent increase in guided sport fishing clients last year, and that there’s enough halibut to accommodate that growth.

But he remains discouraged by the cost of investment in commercial halibut fishing — which is regulated under an Individual Fishing Quota system, or IFQs. Farvour says the price has gone “through the roof.” The most recent price listed for IFQs in the Central Gulf — or Area 3 A — was $58/lb for 4,600 pounds — that’s over a quarter-million dollars just for access to the fishery.

“It does seem crazy. I know in Canada they’re even more than that. Just because you see that advertised that doesn’t mean that’s what they’re going to get. Sometimes people start speculating or throwing numbers out there.”

IFQ prices in other areas — Area 4 for instance — are considerably less, but still high relative to permits for other fisheries. Farvour says communities such as Sitka are beginning to explore opening “permit banks” to assist young fishermen hoping to buy IFQs. He bought IFQs when they were cheaper — but the quota larger — and thinks that they remain a good investment over the long term.

The interim meeting of the International Pacific Halibut Commission is just two days, and mainly consists of scientific and committee reports. The six commissioners — half from the US, half from Canada — will make their final decision on catch limits at their annual meeting beginning Jan. 25 at Centennial Hall in Juneau.

The seiner Infinite Grace pursing up during the third opening in the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery, on Wednesday, March 26, 2014 (KCAW photo/Rachel Waldholz)

Many of the players and stakeholders in Southeast Alaska’s salmon and herring fisheries laid out their positions Tuesday morning (2-24-15), as the Alaska Board of Fisheries opened its spring meeting to public testimony.

Although the board had already received detailed, written comments on the 107 management proposals, it is in the oral testimony that most people’s concerns and frustrations really emerge.

KCAW’s Robert Woolsey reports on Day 2 of the Board of Fish meeting in Sitka.

Downloadable audio.

The Board of Fish’s spring meeting in Sitka is open to the public in person at Harrigan Centennial Hall, and also online.

It did not take long for the central conflicts to emerge Tuesday morning, as fishermen, tender operators, and subsistence users offered their views to the Board of Fish in public testimony.

One ongoing dispute is between commercial and sport fishermen targeting Taku River king salmon near Juneau. Steve Merritt, a commercial salmon fisherman from Craig, thought it was premature to restrict the troll harvest of Taku River kings.

“Despite what the Territorial Sportsmen say, there is no crisis on the Taku, and it is not rapidly declining. Consistency is important.”

Merritt told the board that there was a “hidden evil” in proposal 174, which would create a Taku king salmon management plan — a deliberate effort to push trollers off of Taku kings, despite a good faith effort to work with sport fishermen.

Juneau resident Larry Edfeldt disagreed. Edfeldt is with Territorial Sportsmen, a sport fishing advocacy group.

“A run of only 20,000 kings filtering into the Juneau area over a four-month period means the fish are so thinly dispersed that there is almost no chance of an encounter with a Taku fish by a sportfisherman during March, April, May, or June.”

Meanwhile, several Sitka residents spoke in favor of proposals to limit the commercial herring harvest in Sitka Sound, arguing that the population needs time to rebuild.

Sitka Tribal Council member Harvey Kitka reminded the board of their constitutional mandate to conserve Alaska’s fish stocks. He said Sitka Sound had become the last viable population of herring in Southeast. He urged the board to consider the Tribe’s several proposals to curtail commercial harvest areas and limits.

“I really think in the long run this might even be good for the commercial people. I think they’re overflooding the market, and causing the price to drop.”

The Sitka Tribe has become more systematic in developing proposals for this cycle. Tribal staff biologist Jessica Gill testified that herring biomass has been on the downturn since 2011, and of the six potential sac roe herring fisheries in Southeast, only Sitka Sound would be open this year.

Coho clan leader and tribal elder Herman Davis was concerned about this trend.

“I wonder if all the scientists that are here can figure out what’s going to happen when the herring are gone?”

Davis said that herring populations were critical to the health of other stocks, including halibut and salmon.

Tribal members reminded the board that the subsistence harvest of herring roe-on-hemlock was a region-wide commodity. ANB Grand Camp No.1 Secretary Harriet Belisle’s testimony was more personal than scientific.

“It is in your hands. And what you decide, today and later, will determine and affect many lives. So do the right thing, and sleep better at night.”

But there are many lives involved in the commercial harvest of herring, too. Petersburg resident Rod Bruce operates two tenders. He told the board that this season’s weak market and possible cooperative fishery meant he didn’t have a contract for Sitka Sound herring. And he suspected that none of the many other tenders had contracts, either.

“This has traditionally been a financial kick-start in the early season for the tender fleet preparing for the salmon season. With fewer vessels fishing the quota, there are also numerous crew members without jobs. I know of one traditional processor at least that is staffed up for the fishery this year that has decided not to run their freezing line, leaving dozens of people idle. This has a ripple effect down through the communities of Alaska. Sitka, of course, but also Petersburg, Ketchikan, Juneau, and even Seward — anywhere these fish have been processed in the past, as ancillary businesses: marine suppliers, hardware stores, restaurants, pubs, lose revenue from these participants.”

There wasn’t quite as much polarity in testimony on some other proposals. Using pots to fish for black cod, for instance, remains a relatively novel idea in Southeast. Fishermen have been frustrated for years by sperm whale predation on longlines, which catch fish on individual hooks.

But Sitka fisherman Jeff Farvour said it wasn’t simply a matter of trading out longline gear for pots.

“I fully understand the desire to use pots, but my concern is that it not impact the traditional longline fisheries, because it becomes a big boat/small boat kind of thing. I think an estimate of up to $250,000 to invest in pot gear, and upgrading hydraulics, and those kinds of things.”

Hydaburg fisherman James Phillips had no intention of going out in 20-foot seas and slinging several-thousand-pound pots of black cod around. “I’m not a Bering Sea crabber,” he told the board.

Phillips said he could be swayed in favor of proposal 131, but he thought the protection from sperm whales disadvantaged fishermen. Pots catch smaller fish, and not the 45-pound giants that bring in $7-10 per pound on longlines.

Phillips then said what probably more than one longliner has thought.

“I’ll put it bluntly: My family would like to see some taking of the whales, but that’s never going to happen. Kinda like balancing the federal budget. Thank you.” (laughter)

A final simmering dispute at this year’s Board of Fish meeting is the allocation of hatchery runs among the various gear groups. As chum prices have climbed steadily over the past decade, trollers have seen their harvest values increase, but their overall share of the fish decline relative to the net fisheries.

Haines troller James Moore has been fishing for 40 years, but this was his first time to address the board. Moore is taking the high road.

“I’m committed as ever to working to promoting opportunity for my fleet, to working for my gear group to come into its targeted allocation range — but not at all costs. Certainly not at the cost of a respectful, informed working relationship between user groups.”

The Board of Fish is down one member after Gov. Walker’s nominee, Roland Maw, withdrew his name last week. Acting chair Tom Kluberton thought Moore had the right attitude for policy-making.

“Thank you very much. I’d like to direct your attention to this empty seat up here.” (laughter)

Moore already sits on four industry boards. One more, he said, “and my wife will kill me.”

The next step in the board process is to work in public committee — called the Committee of the Whole — to consolidate similar proposals. Committee work could take several days. The Board of Fish will meet daily in Sitka through March 3.