By Sentinel Staff
Some seiners in the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery continued their pursuit of the small silver fish Wednesday, but participation was low, and the Department of Fish and Game didn’t disclose the harvest numbers today.
Three vessels and fewer than three processors participated in Wednesday’s fishery, Fish and Game Area Management Biologist Aaron Dupuis told the Sentinel. When it’s that low, harvest data is kept confidential, he said.
“Everybody else is done… They’ve fulfilled their market so they’re done buying,” Dupuis said of the processors that have stopped purchasing herring for the season.
The commercial fishery likely won’t continue much longer, he said.
“I expect the fishery to go not much longer. We’re going to be wrapped up here pretty fast… If we start getting a lot of spawn in the areas that are open then we’ll close it down. Or if the remaining processors fill whatever they want or they are done buying, we’ll close it down,” Dupuis said. “Quality will shut it down, or if nobody is buying, we’ll shut it down.”
Poor weather canceled today’s scheduled aerial survey, though Wednesday’s survey noted about 33.3 miles of herring spawn on beaches.
There were heavy concentrations of spawn on the eastern shore of Kruzof Island between Shoals Point and the Magoun Islands. The little slider fish have also spawned on Krestof Island around Promisla Bay, as well as on Gagarin, Crow, and Middle Islands.
So far, Dupuis said, there have been no surprises regarding spawning.
“Nothing unexpected – based on what we saw with the fish volume and fish distribution there’s a lot left to come,” he said.
The cumulative harvest since daily openings began March 27 was 15,700 tons at the end of fishing Tuesday.
In January, Fish and Game set a guideline harvest level of 33,304 tons, though it indicated it didn’t expect the total harvest would exceed 20,000 tons. The forecast for herring returns this year was estimated at 210,453 tons.
