Sand Point fleets get 48 more hours through Sunday night

Boats around Sand Point that were set to come off the grounds Friday night are cleared to keep fishing through the weekend. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game extended commercial salmon fishing by 48 hours, from 9 p.m. Friday, Aug. 21, until 9 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23, under Emergency Order No. 4-FS-M-SP-21-26.

Purse seine and set gillnet gear are covered in the Unimak, Southwestern, and South Central districts, and in the Shumagin Islands, Beaver Bay, Balboa Bay, Southwest Stepovak, Northwest Stepovak, and East Stepovak sections of the Southeastern District. Drift gillnet gear is extended only in the Unimak District and the Ikatan Bay Section of the Southwestern District, the same narrower footprint that gear group has carried through the August openings.

The extension picks up where a 61-hour period ending Friday night left off. That opening began at 8 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 19, and followed another 61-hour window from Aug. 12 to Aug. 14 in the same districts and sections, which Alaska News previously covered.

Closed waters stay as written in the 2026-2029 regulation book unless a separate emergency order moves them. Under those regulations, from June 1 through Oct. 31, S01M permit holders must release all kings 28 inches or greater unharmed; injured or dead kings must be retained and recorded. Separately, at a Chignik Advisory Committee meeting on July 30, 2025, Area M Management Biologist Matt Keyse explained king protections taken in Area M that year, including non-retention of Chinook 28 inches or greater and a 1,000-fish trigger cap in the Shumagins. Fishermen working the extension could not be reached for comment.

The advisory, signed by Keyse and Assistant Area Management Biologist Annie Brewster, carries no in-season catch or escapement figures explaining the decision.

Daily announcements run on VHF channels 6 and 73 at 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., or by phone from the Sand Point office at 907-383-2334.