Fish and Game cuts Craig, Klawock herring limit 28% to 5,135 tons

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game set the 2026-27 herring harvest limit for Craig and Klawock at 5,135 tons on Tuesday, down 28% from last season's 7,095 tons.

By regulation the limit splits 60/40: 3,081 tons to the winter food and bait fishery, already under way, and 2,054 tons to the spring spawn-on-kelp pound fishery in Section 3-B.

The department based the limit on a forecast of 34,230 tons of mature spawning herring and a 15% harvest rate. The Board of Fisheries lowered that rate from 20% at its 2025 Southeast and Yakutat meeting in Ketchikan. Last season's limit used the same 15% rate on a 47,302-ton forecast, so the forecast fell by 13,072 tons in a year.

The department also switched models, from an integrated statistical catch-at-age model to a biomass accounting model. Neither announcement explains why.

The department again calls the age-3 herring estimated in 2025 the second-largest recruitment class in the Craig and Klawock record since 1988, and says that year class "continues to be strong." Now age 5, those fish make up 49% of this year's forecast mature biomass. A June department summary found the 2026 spawn near Craig stretched 21.2 nautical miles, below the 10-year average of 27.7. It lasted 16 days instead of the usual seven to eight, with repeated spawning over the same shoreline.

The season opens by regulation Oct. 1, and the limit came 40 days later. The fishery opened before a harvest limit was set. The department's Oct. 5 announcement said the limit was "expected to be more than adequate" for fishing to begin and that Section 3-B and District 4 would open at 12:01 am Oct. 7. Tuesday's announcement says those waters opened at 12:01 am Oct. 5. The records do not say which date is right. Last season's limit was set Dec. 19, 2025.

Last season the bait limit was 4,257 tons and the starting pound limit 2,838 tons. The bait fishery closed Feb. 28 with a confidential harvest, and its unused share raised the pound limit. Last spring, 124 permits landed 152 tons of spawn-on-kelp product from 69 pounds.

Any unused winter share this season will again shift to the pound fishery, and the department plans to announce the revised pound limit by March 5, 2027. The department has not reported how much herring has been landed so far this season.

The winter fishery closes by emergency order when the limit is expected to be reached, or Feb. 28, 2027, at the latest.

Trocadero Bay stays closed east of Canoe Point. Ernest Sound, Hobart Bay and Port Houghton, and Tenakee Inlet are closed for the season. The department did not survey Hobart Bay this year, citing budget constraints.

Fishermen and tenders must hold a department permit, report their harvest and delivery location to the Ketchikan office by noon the next day and provide a 5-gallon bucket of herring from each delivery for sampling.