Unharvested shrimp rolls into winter limit in a lightly fished Southeast trawl fishery

Southeast Alaska's shrimp trawlers in District 8, near Wrangell and Petersburg, can catch up to 250,000 pounds this winter, the most the state allows in a single period, after much of the shrimp available earlier in the season went uncaught.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game set the limit for the period that runs Nov. 1 through Feb. 28 in an advisory Friday.

Few boats are fishing. The department kept the catch from September and October confidential because fewer than three permit holders fished, saying only that it was under the limit. July and August's catch was confidential for the same reason.

The only period catch the state has released this season is from May and June, when trawlers caught an estimated 69,000 pounds in District 8, against a limit of 250,000.

Under the department's plan for the fishery, shrimp left uncaught in one period roll into the next, up to a 250,000-pound cap. The winter period on its own would have had a 65,000-pound limit, according to the preseason advisory. The department says the rollover lets the fleet fish as market conditions dictate.

The boats drag beam trawls along the bottom for pink and sidestripe shrimp. Spot and coonstripe shrimp come up as bycatch, and District 8 has seasonal limits on both. So far trawlers have taken 2,198 pounds of spot shrimp against a 6,000-pound limit, and 560 pounds of coonstripe against 10,000 pounds.

The department set District 8's limits in the 2016/17 season as a precaution, it says, to keep from overharvesting shrimp stocks it has little information about while leaving room for the fishery and its markets to grow. It kept them the same this season.