Too many young fish shut Sand Point's seiners out of the Shumagins

Sand Point's commercial seine fleet is locked out of a key fishing area — not because the fish aren't there, but because too many of them are the wrong ones. Fish and Game has closed the Shumagin Islands Section to seine gear for the first post-June periods after test fisheries turned up immature salmon at more than triple the level that triggers a shutdown.

The rule is meant to protect young fish before they've had a chance to grow and spawn: if a test net pulls in 100 or more immature salmon per set, the section closes. The July tests came back at 391 and 365 per set — far past the line. Nearly all of those fish were sockeye, pointing to a specific concern about protecting that stock. The department did allow set gillnetting nearby in the Northwest Stepovak Section for a short window.

The closures land in the middle of a fight over the rules themselves.

The Aleutians East Borough, two Area M fishermen's groups, and the Native Village of Unga sued in April to throw out the new post-June regulations, adopted by the Board of Fisheries in February, arguing the process was "biased" and "ignored the science and the voices of our communities."

So even as the closures play out on the water, whether these rules survive at all is being decided in court.