Sitka Herring is in full swing. After somewhat of a confusing start, fishermen has harvested just under half the quote. On this pace, it should only take another three openers to fill the quota. The price is still a mystery and the early spawn was just an anomaly. The weather couldn’t be better and fishing will resume tomorrow. Stay tuned @JuneauTek on Twitter for all the latest updates.
That puts the fleet at 14,000 tons so far, well below its goal of a record 29,000 tons.
Fishermen were growing increasingly anxious over the five day interval between Saturday’s fishing and the previous opener on Monday. In the interim, ADF&G mapped nearly 37-miles of active spawn.
The Sac Roe fishery depends on landing the herring just BEFORE they spawn. The egg sacs are sold to gourmet markets primarily in Japan.
ADF&G opened fishing on Saturday in a large area to the north of Sitka, including Krestof and Salisbury sounds. Finding marketable volumes of unspawned fish has been challenging. ADF&G biologist Dave Gordon sounded almost like he was organizing an easter-egg hunt.
“So, a very large area. The situation through last night appears to be that fish moved out of Salisbury, down into Krestof Sound, but there still remains a decent volume of fish in the Salisbury sound area.”
Fishing took place between 2:15 and 5:30 in the afternoon.
via Herring hunt nets 3,700 tons on Saturday | KCAW.
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