A routine Yakutat fishing closure lands on a shrinking fleet

Another patch of ocean off Yakutat closed to fishing this week — one more line on the water for the small-boat crews who work that coast.

Federal managers shut directed fishing for dusky rockfish in the West Yakutat District on July 22, once the fleet hit its 150-ton yearly limit. It's routine: a quota filled, a season closed on schedule. What it lands on isn't. Yakutat's fleet has thinned for a generation — from 194 commercial permits fished in 1995 to 162 by 2004, part of a long Gulf-wide slide as access tightens and buying in gets costlier.

For a town with no road out, each closed season is one fewer way to make the year pencil out.