Alaska closed its Bering Sea scallop grounds after the two-boat fleet hit the cap

Alaska's scallop fleet is two boats. As of 11:59 pm Wednesday, the Bering Sea grounds are closed to them for the season.

Fish and Game shut commercial weathervane scallop fishing in Registration Area Q — the Bristol Bay and Bering Sea grounds — after catch reports showed the fleet would hit the area's poundage cap by that hour.

Those two vessels landed 317,085 pounds of shucked scallop meat statewide last season, worth an estimated $5.1 million. That's the highest value in a decade, unadjusted for inflation. The estimate comes with a caveat the state puts in writing: with only two participants, publishing actual prices would identify them, so the department relies on a figure the industry supplied and hasn't verified.

Area Q is the season's third closure. Yakutat closed Aug. 26 at its 145,000-pound cap. Unimak Bight closed Sept. 10 after filling a quota of 7,500 pounds. The statewide guideline harvest level is 374,700 pounds, and Area Q's range runs from zero to 300,000.

"State management of the scallop resource using area-specific GHLs, guideline harvest levels, continues to be conservative in terms of our management structure," deputy commissioner Rachel Baker told the North Pacific Fishery Management Council in June.

With two boats and caps set area by area, a single emergency order ends a season.