Pacific NW Fisheries – Fishermens News

State of Pacific Northwest Fisheries, 2024

A bird’s eye view of the region’s commercial fisheries. With 2023 behind us and a new year underway, we thought it was a good time to draw upon state, private sector and federal sources for a bird’s eye view of last year and what’s likely in store for 2024 in Pacific Northwest commercial fisheries. For many in the salmon and albacore tuna fisheries, 2023 was a brutal year. Why? The big pain points appear to be off the water versus fish stock issues. Global markets have been shaken with the price of fish dropping and costs, like fuel, rising sharply. A few new regulations came into effect, like the banning of lighted squid boats in Oregon and anti-whale entanglement regulations for crabbers. But the news isn’t all bad. The Dungeness crab harvest is down a bit, but red rock crab seemed...

Pacific Northwest Fisheries: A Bird’s Eye View

The complex story of Cascadian fisheries defies a simple narrative, but seems mostly positive—minus the El Niño and Oregon quillback mystery. Commercial fisherfolk don’t need an article to know that Earth in the 2020s is a dynamic—some would say pretty insane—time and place, but the next fishing season is eternal. From a macro level, how did Pacific Northwest fisheries fare in 2022? How do they look in 2023? What environmental or economic factors should fishermen from the owner-operator to seasonal deckhand keep in mind? Read on for some intel of what’s to come. El Niño Possibility and Hypoxic Zone Considerations “I’ve just heard the first predictions of what the ocean is going to look like off our coast, and there is a very early … prediction out of NOAA that this will be a stro...

Regional Update: Pacific Northwest Fisheries

Recent studies by Pacific Northwest fisheries officials note mixed conditions faced by fisheries in Washington state and Oregon, but also report an overall improved and positive outlook. NOAA Fisheries reported declines in the U.S. fishing and seafood industry as a result of COVID-19, and some flexible regulation changes were required in 2021 in an effort to stay nimble in uncertain times. NOAA also reported specific conditions generally associated with higher productivity for certain fisheries, resulting in a number of positive ocean indicators off the Oregon coast. These conditions have led to some favorable 2022 fishery forecasts. BROAD OVERVIEW There is some encouraging recent data, said Michael Milstein, spokesman for the NOAA Fisheries Pacific Northwest Regional Office, in a De...