By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
The Southeast Alaskan troll fleet will have the opportunity to pursue more king salmon in 2022 than they did last year under the provisions of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, the Department of Fish and Game has announced.
The all-gear allowable Chinook catch limit for Southeast has been set at 261,300 fish, with 193,200 allotted for the troll fishery, an increase of 44,700 over the 2021 limit.
The announcement was welcome news for the Alaska Trollers Association.
“This basically will restore us back to the pre-Pacific Salmon Treaty agreement, the last one, which was the third one,” ATA executive secretary Amy Daugherty told the Sentinel. “We had harvests at this level for the three years preceding the treaty, which were 2014 through 2016, so we’re glad. This is a good thing for rural Southeast Alaska. Trollers are dispersed throughout Southeast largely, so we’re very happy with this new tier.”
Harvest levels are determined by a seven-tiered catch ceiling table.
Regardless of the increased troll allocation this year, Daugherty noted that troll limits remain below historical levels.
“We’re fighting for our allocation – we’re down at just above a third of our historical allocation, and that’s just a round number depending on the year,” she said. “Obviously this is going to be a little bit better coming into this year. So we’re holding on to every single fish that we can. We’re a very local, high-resident fishery,” she said.
Daugherty was unsure of the precise economic impact of the expanded quota.
“The demand seems very high, and the price is generally good. I don’t know how it’s going to be impacted by these extra 40,000 fish,” she said.
The treaty Chinook allocation does not include Alaska hatchery salmon and includes a buffer designed to prevent fishing beyond the all-gear allocation.
“This year’s all-gear catch limit includes a 2 percent reduction that will serve as a buffer to avoid exceeding the all-gear limit and payback provisions within the treaty,” the ADF&G announcement said.
The department expects to release additional information in the spring Chinook troll fishery in April, with an opening possible in early May.
