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Bering Sea pollock fleet's 2026 non-Chinook salmon bycatch matched 2025, NOAA reports
The Bering Sea pollock fleet caught 151,697 non-Chinook salmon as bycatch in 2026, nearly matching the 151,457 it took in 2025, according to a year-end inseason report from NOAA Fisheries. The report lists no limit for those fish, and its data run through Nov. 6.
The bycatch rate was 0.117 salmon per metric ton of pollock, essentially unchanged from 0.116 in 2025. The count covers all non-Chinook salmon, so it does not show how many were chum or Western Alaska chum, or whether a proposed 45,000-fish cap on Western Alaska chum would have been reached.
The report's five-year figures show non-Chinook bycatch falling from 242,375 fish in 2022 to a low of 35,130 in 2024 before climbing back in 2025 and holding this year.
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted 8-3 on Feb. 11 for a cap of 45,000 Western Alaska chum, split among the four pollock sectors. A sector that reaches its share would have to close half of a fishing corridor for the rest of the June 10 to Aug. 31 period. The council has said about 80% of the chum caught as bycatch are not from Western Alaska, most of them Russian and Asian hatchery fish.
No federal rule for the cap has been proposed yet. As of October, it could be proposed as federal rules by the end of 2026 and would start in 2028.
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About Nature & Outdoors
Nature and Outdoors in Alaska takes in the state's wildlife, public lands and waters, and the hunting, fishing and recreation Alaskans pursue in them. It spans sport, subsistence and commercial fishing, hunts for moose, caribou, elk and sheep, and access to parks, refuges and trails.
Decisions come from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Board of Fisheries, the Board of Game, federal fishery managers and the National Park Service. Seasons open and close as harvest limits fill, and stocks of concern, salmon limits in contested fisheries and halibut shares between charter and commercial fleets are recurring questions. Fishing fleets and seafood plants also depend on federal relief and loan programs and on export paperwork that NOAA explains to sellers.
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Gulf pollock fleet neared its king salmon limit before pollock fishing closed
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