Luna Eells, age 4, looks from the deck of the troller Camijo this afternoon at ANB Harbor. The spring king troll season was off to a slow start this month. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
The spring troll fishery in Sitka Sound got off to a slow start in the first week of May as the fleet pulled in only 57 king salmon, the Department of Fish and Game announced Friday.
However, Fish and Game troll management biologist Grant Hagerman said effort in the first spring opener is often low. He expects fishing effort and harvest to rise through the month.
“There isn’t 1,000 multiplier there – that was just 57 fish. It was a very low effort,” Hagerman told the Sentinel. “Pretty low harvest, and it’s pretty typical the first week or so. Not a lot of the fish have started to migrate where these fisheries are. They’re not like the winter fishery or like the summer where they can fish anywhere offshore. These are kind of more inside corridor fisheries… It’s not too surprising to see low effort and harvest during the first opening.”
The spring troll fishery opened Saturday in Sitka Sound and will run through Wednesday. In Redoubt Bay this week, the fishery will be open Thursday and Friday. Up north in Salisbury Sound, trollers can wet their lines Wednesday through Friday.
Weekly troll openings are governed by Fish and Game announcements released each Friday.
With only eight landings at processing plants reported in the first week of the spring troll fishery, Hagerman said the initial boats on the water serve as a gauge by which other trollers decide when to set out.
“You get a handful of boats that are out there early, and they’re kind of the thermometer of what’s happening,” the biologist said. “So once they actually start catching, the word gets out and then more guys start to fish. So it’s totally normal for this first week to be low harvest, low effort, but I anticipate things increasing quite a bit over the next couple of weeks.”
Because thousands of king salmon were left in the winter troll quota, the spring quota was increased.
“The base (quota for each area) is 1,500 fish and there was an additional 500 fish added to each one of those base areas because they had more than 20,000 fish remaining in winter… However, Sitka Sound is 3,500 because it has a 3,000 fish base because of its size and because of its track record,” he added.
This year, the winter troll fishery opened in April along much of the Outer Coast from Yakutat to Craig for the first time in several years, but effort and harvest remained low and a significant portion of the winter guideline harvest level of 45,000 treaty kings went uncaught.
Though some winter troll fish tickets are still being processed, Hagerman estimated trollers hooked fewer than half of their allotted fish in April.
“For that April extension, trollers caught somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 fish so probably 9,500 fish for the month of April during that extension that we had… Because there’s so many fish remaining on that winter GHL they transfer that extra 500 fish in spring to each one of those openings.”
While king salmon prices were higher during the winter season than in spring or summer, Hagerman said a variety of factors played into the minimal fishing effort.
“The harvest for April was below what we anticipated. We didn’t have the entire region open, we did just have select areas on the Outer Coast. So that did make some difference, but I think in general the catch rates were maybe a little bit lower and effort was definitely lower than what we anticipated for reopening here… Effort was a big factor. There were just a lot fewer boats fishing than what we anticipated,” he said.
The April winter king salmon troll opening was announced on March 30, opened on April 3 and ran through the remainder of the month, with a 28,000 fish quota.
With the spring fishery still young, Hagerman noted it’s too early to know how this year’s salmon returns will shape up.
“The forecasts are pretty similar to last year and that’s what we look at too, what to expect as you look at the Alaska hatchery forecasts for all of the Southeast Alaska hatcheries and kind of get some idea,” he said.
How the season actually materializes “is a question mark until we start to get some harvest in,” he said.
Fish and Game requires trollers “to segregate fish caught in different fishery areas” so that accurate dockside sampling of the numbers of wild and hatchery fish caught in each area can be determined by department personnel.
“We monitor the catch and the Alaska hatchery proportions and each one of these fisheries and then, every Friday based on what we’re seeing, we make openings for the next week. Whether we need to be more restrictive or we can liberalize is all based on that Alaska hatchery percent,” Hagerman said.
