By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
Last Thursday the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association Crawfish Inlet fishery netted fishermen a record one-day catch of more than 980,000 chum salmon.
And between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. this Thursday fishermen will get their third chance to participate in the common property portion of the fishery.
In consultation with Silver Bay Seafoods, NSRAA has elected to suspend cost recovery operations to provide for the 15-hour opening.
Ty Grussendorf pulls salmon aboard the Juneau gillnetter Quiet Storm this afternoon near Error Island in Eastern Channel. (Sentinel Photo)
Silver Bay, which won the bid for the cost recovery contract, caught about 475,000 pounds of chum on Sunday, another 775,000 pounds Monday, and an estimated 1.2 million pounds Tuesday. They’re fishing today as well.
“Fish quality was good as far as flesh and roe,” Silver Bay Seafoods CEO Richard Riggs said. “The egg quality is great and the flesh quality is great. We have been blessed with this opportunity of more fish than expected. Opening it up for the rest of the fleet is great. I think Crawfish in general has been good for the fleet and the industry in a year where there is not a lot of bright stars. Crawfish has exceeded expectations which is good for the industry and good for the fleet.”
A fourth common property fishery will depend on Thursday’s results and surveys by Silver Bay, NSRAA and Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Silver Bay Seafoods won a bid in the Spring for the contract for the cost recovery portion of the fishery. A portion of the contract states the bidder is expected to conduct harvest when chum accumulate to approximately 10,000 fish.
“We’ll see what happens with fish abundance after the opening,” Riggs said. “We’re looking at it today as well, concerning what kind of fish entry there is. We’ll communicate with NSRAA in that. It’s a good problem to have when you get a surge of fish like this. It’s above and beyond what NSRAA expected. We are dealing with a first-time event and we look at it like more of an opportunity for the fleet.”
The first common property opening was August 19 and resulted in 144,000 salmon harvested.
According to Fish & Game numbers (excluding Tuesday’s harvest), the chum salmon harvest to date for Crawfish Inlet is about 2,000,000 chum. Approximately 1,140,000 chum have been harvested in the common property seine openings, and the Crawfish Inlet troll harvest to date is 190,000 chum salmon.
Although fishermen have been pleased with their last harvest opportunity, many said there was a darker side to the fishery than the color of the salmon brought onto their decks. Some voiced concerns about how the fishery was managed by Silver Bay Seafoods, questioning whether the processor waited too long before having the common property openings, which resulted in what they said were chum not desirable or over-ripe.
None, however, would speak on the record, fearing repercussions from processors.
“First of all, that is a processor issue and not really my issue,” NSRAA General Manager Steve Reifenstuhl said. “I have heard some of that, but my feeling is that there is an agenda and that agenda is to get an opening rather than have Silver Bay harvest fish for cost recovery.”
Riggs stated that their egg quality and fish quality were great.
“Obviously our plant is in Sitka and it is really close,” he said. “But the texture of the fish is great and the roe quality is fantastic. I think it is a good thing for Sitka to see NSRAA have success at Crawfish because, obviously, we have three local processors that are involved in the chum fishery in some gear group. Then you bring all that activity, the multiplier dollar, to Sitka as well as the local fleet.”
The Crawfish Inlet fishery is a terminal harvest location, so the head of the inlet will have some quality that isn’t the same as entry fish, or fish moving into the area. Biologists say that it’s comparable to any river system harvest in that fish in the system longer will have a higher percentage of pale meat, but markets for fish of this quality have been established over the years via particulars of male to female percentage, roe percentage, and size variables.
The Sentinel asked seafood processors if they had any concerns.
“We had a good opening,” Icicle Seafoods plant manager Don Spiglemyer said. “I think that they caught these fish just in time. The roe quality that we got and the meat quality was better than we expected. Ultimately, the timing was OK, it wasn’t great – brighter fish is much better – but I do think that we were able to grab ahold of them before they were unusable. We had some that were up in the head of the inlet and some that were out towards the outer line.”
Industry professionals said the Crawfish Inlet harvest is among those that have a domestic market for the larger and paler meat chum, including smokery markets. Smaller size pale meat fish go for the retail market in Europe, and brighter headed and gutted fish go to domestic and overseas markets. Eggs go to the domestic and European Ikura roe markets, including mature chum “hard shell” Ikura, and salted and flavored Ikura products are targeted to the domestic, Asian and European markets. Some markets will take chum fillets.
“The big question is whether this has slowed down,” another said. “I think it will continue on for at least another 10 days.”
Reifenstuhl said he looked at the fish harvested in Shamrock Bay and Crawfish Inlet.
“They all looked good to me,” he said. “I definitely checked the quality each time the fish were harvested for cost recovery at the Sitka plant, and we have samplers that check the fish as well, and we have not seen a problem. I have not heard any complaints. If there were an issue I would have heard about it.”
Reifenstuhl said they will review the Thursday harvest and decide if another common property fishery will occur. He said it’s likely there will be cost recovery Monday and Tuesday and another opening next week.
ADF&G Sitka area management biologist Eric Coonradt said that fish were allowed to build up, but noted that they came in rather quickly.
“I don’t think they came in slowly and built up over time,” he said. “Silver Bay has been doing cost recovery for the last month and have had a substantial effort at it. This came in much stronger than anyone anticipated.”
Coonradt said the requirement is that NSRAA clean up any excess fish, and if they aren’t doing that ADF&G can step in and open the fishery for common property.
He said there has been cost recovery, there have been common property openings, fish are still coming in, and NSRAA and Silver Bay feel they are still keeping up with fish and that they can manage the build-up.
“There are always concerns when you have a hatchery or a remote release site,” he said. “We do have a field crew that assesses for us and one of their jobs this year also involved checking chum salmon in West Crawfish Inlet. It’s being monitored.”
Coonradt said it’s not surprising to see dead fish in late fisheries.
“I know the quality was not great for some guys,” he said. “But I have talked to some who said it was OK and the eggs were OK. It depended on where you fished.”
Coonradt said they have noticed salmon buildups in Shamrock Bay, but those fish have moved out and ADF&G has seen newer fish moving in. He said there is no incentive for Silver Bay to let fish build up, and everyone wants the fish out of the water. He said Silver Bay is working closely with NSRAA and ADF&G.
“I really can’t say I am not concerned with the abundance,” he said. “You do see fish that do move into places and they become stagnant there and you have to clean them out. If we saw that, and we are concerned with streams in West Crawfish, or streams anywhere, we did see fish show up at one of the streams but they moved out. Because it’s a new program it will be a little bit of a learning curve for everybody.”
Another processor said. “Unfortunately, there is a market for any type of salmon somewhere. But that is a good thing.”
A Seiner’s Facebook posting by Charlie Skultka Sr. stated:
“As a person who was involved in the process of the beginning of hatcheries, I for one do not favor any bidding on exclusive harvests deemed cost recovery exceeding a set amount of return on projected run strength and have a return that comes in over projections. The staff and directors decide what is necessary to make ends meet. The excess should always be shared in a common property fishery and not be monopolized by any bidding of private harvests .... ”
Skultka said fishermen by rights own the fish since, as permit holders, they pay the salmon tax.
He added, “We have reached the point in history that we voted to achieve. Now Alaska has made history with one of many projects we paid for, and speaking for myself and others, kudos to the gang at NSRAA for a job well done. Success was our goal when we created you and it is a good feeling to witness a true ‘Success Story.’”
