Fish and Game closes Kodiak's Ugak and Kiliuda herring waters a day before B season's end

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game closed the Inner and Outer Ugak, Shearwater Bay, and Inner and Outer Kiliuda sections of Kodiak's Eastside District to commercial sac roe herring fishing at noon Saturday, a day before the fishery's B season was scheduled to end Oct. 25.

By Saturday, about 420 tons of herring had been caught in the B season, according to the department's announcement. That's about 30% of the season's 1,392-ton guideline harvest level.

The B season opened July 1. Its harvest level is based on a share of the spring A season's harvest level that went uncaught.

Last fall, Forrest Bowers, now director of the department's commercial fisheries division, told a Board of Fisheries work session that the Kodiak fishery "is managed now with several seasonal components rather than just two," and that participation in the new opportunities had been lower than the department expected.

The department let tenders into the B season Oct. 14, with less than two weeks left. Tenders are the boats that collect fish from fishing vessels and carry them to processors, and the season had run without them since July.

Saturday's announcement still listed sections open in the rest of the Eastside District and in six other districts, from Afognak Island to Alitak.

Kodiak's separate herring food and bait fishery opens at 9 am Monday with a 1,280-ton limit across eight districts.