Geoduck divers near Ketchikan get two more days, with a 400-pound limit each

Fish and Game is giving commercial divers two more days this week to dig geoducks southeast of Ketchikan, but each diver can bring up only 400 pounds of the big clams.

The Cat and Dog Islands beds, in Felice Strait and Revillagigedo Channel, open from 8 am to 4 pm Wednesday and Thursday, the department announced Monday. Divers have already taken most of the area's 47,300-pound harvest target for the season, leaving 13,000 pounds.

The 400-pound cap is less than half the usual one. Under the state's geoduck management plan, each permit holder can typically take up to 1,000 pounds a week.

There's also more company on the boat. Up to four permit holders can fish from one boat this week, instead of the usual two, though only two can be in the water at once. The plan allows that only when the weekly limit is 500 pounds or less.

Geoducks are among the largest burrowing clams in the world, according to Fish and Game. Shells have been measured at more than 8 inches, and clams at about 7 pounds. Geoducks live buried in the seafloor, with a siphon, or neck, that can stretch about 3 feet up to the surface.

Divers must harvest them with a hand-operated water jet, under state rules, and keep every geoduck they take. There's no size limit.

They can also live a long time. Fish and Game says geoducks have been found still producing eggs or sperm at 107 years old, and a female can release 1 million to 2 million eggs in a single spawning. But "recruitment is low and juveniles are scarce," the department says, meaning few young clams make it into the population.

The state sets each area's yearly harvest target at 2% of its estimated geoduck biomass.

Across Southeast, the harvest target is 264,000 pounds this season, down from 443,600 a year ago. Two beds are staying closed until their estimated geoduck biomass climbs back above 30% of the original estimates. The department has documented evidence of sea otters eating geoducks in both.

Each week's opening waits on testing for the toxin that causes paralytic shellfish poisoning, and this week's harvest is for live sale. The fishery closes for Thanksgiving from Nov. 20 through Dec. 1.