Alaska spring king fishing

Discussion related to commercial salmon trolling, boats, gear, fishing techniques, electronics, marketing, etc.
Post Reply
Salty
Site Supporter
Site Supporter
Posts: 2399
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 1:46 pm

Alaska spring king fishing

Post by Salty »

Fellow Alaska Trollers,
What is going on this spring. After unprecedented winter abundance the Kings have moved out and are not being caught in even normal numbers in our open areas. Any ideas?

Also, the dept has gone to a different scheme for the openings. Starting the week region wide on Sunday's instead of Monday's, and scheduling some openings on Thursdays in the Sitka area. Gives us two openings a week. What do you think?
duck
Member
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Oct 28, 2008 7:48 pm

Re: Alaska spring king fishing

Post by duck »

I don 't think it is working well at all. The goddard area is to small without having the adjacent area (redoubt) open at the same time. If the department keeps us down to six days a week in sitka sound (terminal harvest area) it could cost the trollers up to $385.000 in lost revenue. The number of kings predicted to go through eastern channel between now and July would be 611 per day. If we loose 7 more days of fishing on fish that we helped pay for- that is not right.
Trnaround
Site Supporter
Site Supporter
Posts: 215
Joined: Sun Nov 20, 2011 12:56 pm
Spammer?: No

Re: Alaska spring king fishing

Post by Trnaround »

Not sure why the new regime is cutting out one day of fishing in Sitka Sound area, couldn't be because too many fish are being caught there. Maybe they feel they need time to count the fish being caught or something. The fish haven't disappeared, the charter boats are catching just fine outside our boundary lines. This isn't the first time the fishing has been slow in May though and if the fish are there June usually gets better and we forget all about how slow it was in May. The schedule we are getting seems to be the after effects of a banner winter King fishery and catching more treaty fish than usual at this point. I could be totally wrong but that's what it feels like and I am just thinking in terms of out front of Sitka, other areas could be effecting the decision making too. I have to agree with "Duck" though, we need to have fishing time catch those hatchery fish that everyone put so much time and effort to put out there for that purpose. Well keep a line in the water, everyday gets better from here on.
Salty
Site Supporter
Site Supporter
Posts: 2399
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2008 1:46 pm

Re: Alaska spring king fishing

Post by Salty »

Thx for the comments. i originally proposed a larger Goddard area but am glad we got what we have which was enlarged this year.
The Sunday change is to better facilitate processors getting kings to market for the weekend.
I agree, Goddard is better when paired with Redoubt. But, nice to have at least something down that way open 4 days a week.
Post Reply