State will lift Chignik cod boat size limit Oct. 31 for the last 229,000 pounds

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued an emergency order Tuesday that lifts the 58-foot boat limit in the Chignik Area's state-waters Pacific cod fishery. Starting at 12:01 am Alaska time Oct. 31, a vessel of any size may fish the roughly 229,000 pounds left in state waters, within 3 nautical miles of shore.

The state's Chignik cod management plan allows the change after Oct. 30 if the commissioner finds the season's catch limit, known as the guideline harvest level, would not otherwise be reached by Dec. 31.

Pot boats caught about 5.31 million pounds through Oct. 26, the order says. Jig boats reported none. The remaining pounds may be taken with pot or jig gear, with no gear limits, until the limit is reached or the season closes Dec. 31.

The pot season opened March 1 with a 60-pot limit and closed at noon April 22, when catch reports showed the pot share would be taken. On Aug. 15, with about 490,000 pounds uncaught, the department opened the remainder to either gear without gear limits.

The limit was unusually large this year. The department first set it at 3,715,881 pounds, then on Feb. 5 raised it 49 percent, to 5,542,475 pounds, after the North Pacific Fishery Management Council reviewed an updated Gulf of Alaska cod stock assessment delayed by the fall 2025 federal government shutdown. Under the state plan, the Chignik level equals 8.75 percent of the federal Central Gulf cod catch limit: 90 percent for pot gear and 10 percent for jig gear.

Last year the department issued the same size-limit order on Oct. 28, with about 2.1 million pounds caught and about 1.8 million pounds of a 3.96 million-pound limit left. This year the pot fleet caught its whole share in under eight weeks.

Jig boats reported no Chignik state-waters cod in 2025 either. At the Board of Fisheries statewide finfish meeting in March, a speaker said there had been no Chignik jig landing in maybe 15 years and that the fleet functionally does not exist.

The August order said the department might close state waters on or after Oct. 30 so a parallel season could open alongside the federal fishery. Federal managers closed Central Gulf of Alaska pot cod fishing at noon Oct. 7 for the rest of 2026 to keep the pot fleet within its allocation, as Alaska News reported Oct. 8. Tuesday's order does not mention a parallel season and keeps state waters open instead.

Chignik remains a superexclusive registration area. A boat registered there cannot fish state-waters cod in another area at the same time.