Commercial Fisheries

A Kodiak crab quota lease would guarantee boats Unalaska-level prices

Kodiak's fisheries association would lease its crab processing quota to Royal Aleutian, on the condition that Kodiak boats get paid Unalaska prices.

by Alaska News1mo ago2 min read

Bristol Bay's 2026 sockeye run falls below 50 million for first time since 2014

Bristol Bay caught the fewest sockeye since 2014 and still made more money than usual doing it. Togiak missed its escapement floor by 702 fish.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Halibut scientists report whale losses and a shift in when females mature

Halibut scientists told their advisers this week they still cannot count what whales take, and that females are maturing younger than the models assumed.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

The West Coast's halibut fleet needed six openings to near its small quota

The West Coast's commercial halibut season is over after six openings to catch a small quota — from the same stock Alaska fishes, near 1970s lows.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Southeast's Dungeness fleet gets a 30-day fall season after a short summer

Southeast's Dungeness crabbers get 30 days this fall after an early summer closure, and Wrangell has asked the state to seek a federal fishery disaster.

by Alaska News1mo ago1 min read

State says genetics funding enabled first Western Alaska chum bycatch cap

State-funded genetic testing helped create a 45,000-fish Western Alaska chum bycatch cap. NOAA implementation is expected no earlier than 2028.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min readFrom Sep 16

Follows: Pollock official puts bycatch impact on Western Alaska runs at 1.9%

Sullivan's bycatch bill advances from Senate committee

A Senate committee advanced Sullivan's bycatch bill, which would set trawl-gear standards, expand monitoring and fund bycatch research.

by Alaska News1mo ago1 min readFrom Sep 16

ADF&G cuts Southeast fall Dungeness crab season to 30 days

Southeast's Dungeness fleet gets 30 fall days instead of 60, because a harvest projection built from one week of June fishing came in short.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min readFrom Aug 7

Yakutat gillnetters must donate Chinook found dead in Situk nets

Yakutat set gillnetters open Sunday. Any king that dies in the net gets its dorsal fin cut off and handed to somebody in town who needs it.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Southeast trollers got ten more days, and a smaller fleet to fish them with

Southeast trollers got ten more days for coho. There is a smaller fleet to fish them, and the harvest is still headed below the record lows.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Trollers get Neets Bay back through the middle of October

Neets Bay is open to trollers again through Oct. 10, six weeks after it closed so the hatchery association could take its cost recovery chum.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min readFrom Aug 21

Fish and Game sets Prince William Sound fall herring quota at 749 tons, citing weak spring spawn

Prince William Sound's fall herring quota came in 633 tons under what the plan allows, and the spawn number behind that call was never published.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Kotzebue's chum run beat the forecast; the state will not say by how much

Kotzebue's chum harvest beat the forecast, and the state will not say by how much. Nobody counted the fish upriver for the second year running.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Alaska seafood groups call EU catch-tracking system a trade barrier

A European rule wants every fish traced back to its boat. Alaska catches salmon 100 boats at a time, and 16,000 tons sat in Dutch ports in May.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Trump fishing order targets Gulf, Atlantic data disputes and could reach Alaska

Trump changed no Alaska catch limit. His national sportfishing order targets Atlantic and Gulf data disputes but could later reach Alaska rules.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Eshamy District salmon season closes Friday night

Eshamy closes Friday night on a season in which nobody reported catching anything for two weeks, under a fishing cap set by an allocation formula.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Copper River coho periods stretch to 36 hours next week

Copper River gillnetters get 36-hour openings Monday and Thursday, up from 24-hour periods, after a delta survey counted 40,780 coho above the expected range, following a difficult summer.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

The snow crab limit is going up. There aren't more crab.

The Bering Sea snow crab catch limit would rise 13% this winter — not because there are more crab, but because scientists cut the safety margin in half.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago3 min read

House committee advances bill treating hatchery fish as wild under Endangered Species Act

House committee voted to require federal agencies to consider hatchery fish alongside wild ones in Endangered Species Act consultations, a shift with major economic implications for Alaska's salmon industry.

by Maggie AlaskaNews1mo ago3 min read

NOAA funds Alaska work on what stranded marine mammals ate

A stranded Alaska killer whale died of sepsis after swallowing three kinds of fishing hooks. NOAA is paying the state to keep examining these animals.

by Maggie AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Sullivan's bycatch bill reaches its first Senate committee test

Sullivan's bycatch bill gets its first committee test Wednesday. It mandates gear changes and monitoring, but doesn't ban trawling or set catch caps.

by Maggie AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

Seafood exports to Türkiye are frozen, though little Alaska product moves there

U.S. seafood can't be certified for export to Türkiye because American plants aren't on its approved list. The blocked edible trade is about $160,000.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min read

Two Southeast geoduck beds stay closed until biomass recovers past 30% threshold

Two Southeast geoduck beds stay closed after surveys found less than a third of the clams left. Sea otters are eating them, and the quota fell 40 percent.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min read

The state's analysis of Alaska's first crab hatchery says it would add little

Alaska's first crab hatchery wants a permit. The state's own analysis says the crab it releases would likely make no measurable difference to the fishery.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago5 min read

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 over. It opens Oct. 1 after all. Two areas it said might reopen will not.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago2 min readFrom Jul 31

Southeast's shrimp season opens small as the harvest keeps shrinking

Four Southeast shrimp pot areas open Oct. 1 with little quota left, as the region's overall shrimp harvest keeps shrinking and young shrimp fail to appear.

by Bill AlaskaNews1mo ago1 min readFrom Aug 1

Managers want to double a halibut cap. Their own analysis warns against it.

Federal managers want to roughly double a halibut vessel cap in the Bering Sea, though their own analysis says it helps a few big boats at the fleet's expense.

by Walter AlaskaNews1mo ago3 min readFrom Sep 3

NOAA awards Bristol Bay fishermen's group $499,400 to push sockeye into restaurants and schools

NOAA awarded Bristol Bay's fishermen's group $499,400 to market sockeye salmon to restaurants and schools, though some fishermen question if demand campaigns raise dock prices.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago2 min read

Southeast king crab quota rests on a figure the state's own report gives two ways

The assessment gives two rates for unsurveyed water. One clears the opening threshold; the other does not, and the report does not explain which was intended.

by Walter AlaskaNews2mo ago3 min read

Follows: Southeast Alaska's king crab fishery will open, barely clearing the bar

Bristol Bay's Nushagak opened late this year to protect its king salmon

Bristol Bay's Nushagak District opened weeks late this season to protect its struggling king salmon, delaying the fleet's access to the sockeye run.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago2 min read

In Kodiak, Sullivan and Peltola agreed on the problems and fought over the fix

Sullivan and Peltola agreed on nearly every fisheries problem in Kodiak and split on what fixing one looks like: laws passed, or fish in the river.

by Alaska News2mo ago3 min read

Southeast king crab registration closes Oct. 2 ahead of a Nov. 1 opening

Southeast Alaska crabbers have until Oct. 2 to register for the red and blue king crab season, which opens Nov. 1 with a quota of about 213,000 pounds.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago1 min read

Prince William Sound seine season ends Monday, after Friday's Cannery Creek opening

Prince William Sound seining closes for the year Monday night. The last openings reached hatchery waters that are usually off-limits to the fleet.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago1 min readFrom Sep 9

Wrangell calls the Dungeness crab decline a disaster; the state calls it the plan

Wrangell declared a local disaster over Dungeness crab and asked for federal relief. The state cut the season by formula and did not use the word.

by Walter AlaskaNews2mo ago2 min readFrom Jul 25

Three Kodiak westside sections now open until further notice; 54-hour period ends 6 p.m. Saturday

Three Kodiak sections are open to salmon seining until further notice. The period covering much of the rest of the area closes Saturday evening.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago1 min readFrom Sep 2

Unimak Bight scallop grounds close tonight with the season's 7,500-pound quota filled

Alaska closed Unimak Bight to commercial scallop fishing for the rest of the 2026/27 season effective Thursday after catch reports showed the 7,500-pound guideline would be met.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago1 min read

West Coast halibut catch falls to a fifth of June's rate as NOAA adds a sixth period

The West Coast halibut fleet can't catch its full allocation — a sign of strain in a coastwide stock, near 40-year lows, that Alaska also depends on.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago2 min read

Alaska Fishermen's Fund appeals council to decide denied injury claims Oct. 14

Alaska commercial fishermen whose injury claims were denied get a decision Oct. 14, reached in a closed session before the council opens its doors.

by Walter AlaskaNews2mo ago2 min read

The Yukon's fall chum run could support a fishery, none has opened

The Yukon's fall chum run is big enough to allow a commercial fishery for the first time since 2019. The state hasn't opened one or said why.

by Walter AlaskaNews2mo ago2 min read

Follows: Yukon coho are running far below normal, and even a strong chum year likely won't reopen fishing

Retention of Aleutian rougheye and blackspotted rockfish closed for rest of 2026

Vessels working the Central and Western Aleutian districts can no longer keep blackspotted and rougheye rockfish.

by Bill AlaskaNews2mo ago1 min read