By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
For the seventh year in a row, no spawn-on-kelp herring pound fishery will be held in Hoonah Sound, the Department of Fish and Game said Tuesday.
“It’s been closed for a number of years,” said Assistant Area Management Biologist Aaron Dupuis.
In a news release the department announced only one spawn-on-kelp pound fishery in Southeast, in the Craig and Klawock area. Other areas where fisheries have taken place in the past, in Ernest Sound, Tenakee Inlet and Hoonah Sound, are closed this year.
Troy Thynes, management coordinator for the region, said in his news release that “insufficient herring spawn” occurred in the spring of 2019 to generate a forecast. The threshold necessary to conduct a commercial fishery in Hoonah Sound is an estimated returning biomass of 2,000 tons.
“We need to observe spawn to generate a biomass estimate,” Dupuis said today. “None was observed. That doesn’t mean there isn’t fish spawning, but it wasn’t observed.”
He noted that only three flights were conducted over the area last year, timed in line with historic spawning times in April.
But, he added, “If there was significant herring spawn we would probably get reports. There’s enough flights and we would probably hear about it.”
The department doesn’t know why herring haven’t been spawning in Hoonah Sound, Dupuis said. The last fishery occurred in 2012.
In the past the Hoonah Sound fishery, about 40 miles north of Sitka, has been a productive one. Fish and Game reported the participation levels at 84 pounding structures as the 10-year average from 2003 to 2012.
In the herring roe pound fishery, permit holders install structures of up to 800 square feet in surface area and up to 30 feet deep, in the water. Blades of macrocystis kelp are suspended in the pound. Seiners capture herring close to spawning and introduce them into the enclosed structure. Herring spawn in the pound, and the herring eggs and kelp are harvested.
Permit holders are required to leave the pounds in the water until herring finish spawning, Dupuis clarified.
