ADF&G announces 400-pot limit for Aleutian state-waters crab fishery

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game will cap each vessel at no more than 90 pots in the 2026-27 Aleutian Islands state-waters golden king crab fishery, dividing a 400-pot total ceiling among however many boats registered by the August 1 deadline. The per-vessel limit shrinks as more boats sign up. Wednesday's advisory states: "The department will establish the individual vessel pot limit by dividing the 400 total pot limit by the number of vessels that registered prior to the August 1 registration deadline; no more than 90 pots per vessel is allowed." Vessels that missed the deadline are excluded. Participants need a K09O permit from the Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission, must register with the Dutch Harbor or Kodiak offices, and must buy buoy tags at $1.50 each.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries adopted the 400-pot cap and the 50,000-pound guideline harvest level for this open-access fishery in March 2025, limiting it to vessels 58 feet or less east of 169 degrees west longitude. In a June department report to the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, Ethan Nichols, deputy director of the Division of Commercial Fisheries, wrote that only one vessel participated in the 2025-26 season, with limited harvest.

Boats 58 feet and under are the only vessels eligible to fish the state-waters area, where harvest is bounded by three limits at once: the 400-pot fleet ceiling, the per-vessel pot limit and the 50,000-pound guideline harvest level. The advisory does not state how many vessels registered by the August 1 deadline, or the resulting per-vessel pot limit.

Pot limits tied to harvest levels appear elsewhere in Alaska crab regulation. Statewide king crab regulations allow no more than 75 pots per vessel in Registration Area M, then drop that to 40 pots when the projected guideline harvest level falls below 600,000 pounds, scaling gear to the size of the available harvest.

The larger rationalized Aleutian Islands golden king crab fishery carries a 2026-27 total allowable catch of 4.742 million pounds, up 13% from 4.19 million pounds. The state-waters fishery's 50,000-pound guideline harvest level, divided under a formula that tightens with every additional registrant, is far smaller than that offshore quota. The rules appear at 5 AAC 34.614.