Daily Sitka Sentinel

Testing Shows Herring Not Yet Ripe for Harvest

By SHANNON HAUGLAND

Sentinel Staff Writer

Test fishing continued today in preparation for the first opening of the 2017 Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery, but samples taken so far don’t indicate an opening is imminent, fishery managers said.

The fishing fleet was put on two-hour notice at 8 a.m. today, which means the fishery can be called with as few as two hours’ advance warning.

In an update to seiners at 11 a.m. today state Fish and Game said a sample taken this morning from north Crow Pass showed 8.6 percent mature roe. More test fishing was planned, and an update was scheduled at 4 p.m. on VHF Channel 10.

The guideline harvest level for this year’s fishery is 14,649 tons based on a 20 percent harvest rate of a forecast mature biomass of 73,245 tons. That’s slightly down from the 14,941-ton quota last year. 

At the preseason meeting for the fleet Thursday afternoon, biologists reviewed the 2016 stock assessment sampling and surveys, and the 2016 age-structured analysis modeling, as well as the 2017 forecast. 

The estimated mature biomass for the 2017 fishery is of 6 percent age-3, 6 percent age-4, 73 percent age-5, 2 percent age-6, 6 percent age-7, and 7 percent age-8 and older. The average forecasted weight is 109 grams, due to the dominance of the 5-year-old age class in the fishery.

Eric Coonradt, area management biologist, said so far 111 tons has been taken in test fishing, leaving 14,538 tons for harvest in the competitive fishery.

He provided observations from his morning aerial survey, with significant numbers of whales seen on Bieli Rock and Inner Point, from Makhnati Rock to Bieli Rock, and north of Middle Island, with sea lions on the north end of Crow and Gagarin Island, and Inner Point.

Fish and Game and law enforcement representatives reviewed the rules for the fishery, including the federal closure area around the causeway and the state closure area for subsistence from the middle of Crow and Middle Islands to Bieli Rock and south to the causeway and Eliason Harbor breakwater. 

The harvest strategy will be to target openings for 4,500 to 5,000 tons at a time, officials said. Generally there will be a day’s interval between openings to allow processors to catch up. There may be more days off with larger catches, or none at all if an opening yields 2,800 tons or less.

During the presentations by biologists, subsistence user Tom Gamble expressed concern about the large concentration of 5-year-olds in the biomass. That age group is estimated to comprise 73 percent of the population, compared to between 2 and 7 percent for the other age classes represented.

“We’re dealing with a fragile resource,” he said. “You’re missing the age classes of herring below age 4.”

He expressed concern about what he saw as a small population of recruits and juvenile herring, and difficulty meeting subsistence needs.

Dr. Sherri Dressel, Fish and Game statewide herring fisheries scientist, said the 5-year-olds are the “third biggest recruit class of herring since 1980.” She said the 1- and 2-year-olds don’t show up on the spawning grounds, compared to about 25 percent of 3-year-olds and about 80 percent of 4-year-olds.

Asked by a member of the audience about “how intensively” the fishery is managed, compared to others, Fish and Game said Alaska has a very intensive sampling program.

The Sitka Sound fishery has “the best data set of anywhere I know of in the Pacific,” Dressel said.

“There’s nowhere else anywhere in the Pacific that (samples as comprehensively) from the beginning to the end of the spawn,” she said.