Many boats in the central Gulf must throw back Pacific ocean perch through December

Many boats fishing in the central Gulf of Alaska must throw back any Pacific ocean perch they catch for the rest of the year, after the National Marine Fisheries Service barred keeping it at noon Wednesday.

The agency acted because the 2,800 metric tons of perch set aside for 2026 as incidental catch for boats outside the rockfish program, meaning perch caught while fishing for something else, "will soon be or has been reached," according to the temporary rule. Until Dec. 31, those boats must treat perch the way they treat prohibited species such as halibut and salmon, and discard it.

Boats checked into the Central Gulf of Alaska Rockfish Program and fishing with a rockfish cooperative quota permit are not covered. Catcher vessels using hook-and-line, pot or jig gear, which federal rules require to keep all the rockfish they catch, and trawl catcher vessels in the electronic monitoring program are exempt from the discard requirement. Under the federal regulation the rule invokes, they cannot sell, barter or trade that perch except as fish meal, though they can eat it or give it away.

At the North Pacific Fishery Management Council's June 4 meeting, Chelsea Riddell, the Rockfish Program's outgoing inter-cooperative manager, said pollock trawlers in the electronic monitoring program went over their limits for keeping rockfish on 4.4% of trips in 2025, and that the main species in the catch, as usual, was Pacific ocean perch. Citing stock assessment authors, she said Gulf perch biomass had "dramatically increased."

NOAA's stock-status summary for Alaska perch says survey estimates have risen rapidly over the last decade, but that its modeled estimate has climbed more gradually, from a low near 100,000 metric tons in 1980 to around 300,000 now, and that recent increases are less certain. NOAA lists the Gulf stock as not overfished, based on its 2023 assessment, and not subject to overfishing, based on 2024 catch.

Earlier this year, federal managers closed directed fishing for perch, the fishing that targets it, in West Yakutat on July 22 and in the Western Gulf on Oct. 1, and for one trawl sector in the Central and Western Aleutians on Aug. 27 and Sept. 4. Those closures ended fishing aimed at perch. In the Western Gulf and Aleutians, boats could still keep perch caught while fishing for other species.