Four Southeast shrimp areas open Oct. 1, including one the department had ruled out

Fish and Game told District 15-East in July that its shrimp season was finished. On Monday the department said the district will open again Oct. 1.

Four Southeast Alaska shrimp pot areas open at 8 am that day: Districts 4, 5 and 16, plus District 15-East. Two areas the July notice had listed as possible reopenings, District 15-Remainder and Sections 8-A/10-C, are not among them.

What is left is thin. District 4 has under 20,000 pounds of quota remaining, District 16 under 12,000, District 5 has 9,700 and District 15-East under 3,500. Each area closes when its quota is expected to be reached, or at the end of February. Fishermen have to reregister at a Southeast Fish and Game office.

Eight areas closed by regulation on July 31, and three were told their season was over. Sections 3-B/C landed 6,100 pounds against a 10,000-pound target and were told they would not reopen "due to poor fishery performance." District 14, which the department had brought back this season on a rotational basis, produced 900 pounds against a 7,500-pound target and got the same sentence. District 15-East was the third, excluded on low remaining quota, and is the one now reopening.

The region as a whole took 325,300 pounds against an available quota of 382,600, about 85 percent, across 90 boats. The department set that regional target in April, down from 408,600 the season before, and its memo described two decades of cut quotas, closed areas and recruitment failures, meaning too few young shrimp coming into the fishery to replace what is taken.