Fish and Game allows tenders in Kodiak herring sac roe B season starting Wednesday

Tenders, the boats that carry herring from fishing vessels to processors, may operate in the Kodiak herring sac roe B season starting at 9 am Wednesday, Oct. 14, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said in an advisory released Tuesday. When the season opened July 1, the department had said no tenders would be allowed initially.

All permit holders, buyers, tenders and processors must register with the department's Kodiak office before taking any fish.

The B season runs through Oct. 25. Its guideline harvest level, the department's harvest target, is 1,392 tons, spread across sections of seven districts. The level is based on 35 percent of the remaining A season harvest level, minus 1,000 tons reserved for a sac roe C season.

Purse seiners may fish 9 am to 9 pm daily; gillnetters fish from noon on even-numbered days to noon on odd-numbered days. Fishermen must report their catch to the Kodiak office as soon as they land it, and failure to do so will result in closures of adjacent areas, according to the advisory. Each district or combined section closes for the rest of the season once it reaches its harvest level.

Forrest Bowers, listed as acting director of the department's commercial fisheries division on this week's advisory, told a Board of Fisheries work session last fall that under new board regulations the Kodiak fishery "is managed now with several seasonal components rather than just two." The A season is the traditional spring sac roe fishery. Bowers said then that participation in the new opportunities had been lower than the department expected.