Industry Veterans Predict First-Run Copper River Sockeyes Will Retain Their Value

Vansee Wheeler, daughter of Rich and Sena Wheeler, fishing Copper River salmon.
All photos courtesy of 60° North Seafoods LLC.

By Margaret Bauman
margie@maritimepublishing.com

An Alaska Board of Fisheries decision in December to delay the opener of the Copper River commercial gillnet fishery by a week in May has some harvesters of those first run Copper River sockeye salmon worried about competition resulting in a price drop.

Not so, say two industry veterans.

“Copper River fish have a very strong reputation, built up over a long period of time, and that reputation consists of this being really high-quality fish,” said Gunner Knapp, an internationally recognized scholar for his work on fisheries markets and management of fisheries resources.

“Everybody who buys that first week’s fish, they will still be buying them,” Knapp said in a Dec. 27 interview with Fishermen’s News. “One week is not going to change that. Copper River has the reputation for high quality. It would be a long, hard fight for some other fishery to say they are as good as Copper River. It would be different if there were a lot of Cook Inlet or Southeast (Alaska) fish … in that market and advertised … as first of the season.”

Knapp also noted that when there is a higher likelihood of good fishing it makes the processing more economical.

Rich Wheeler of 60° North Seafoods LLC, whose company processes that catch in Cordova, agrees. A one-week delay of the traditional mid-May opener will be just fine, he said.

Retail packages of Copper River king salmon from Sena Sea.

Wheeler noted the times when that first mid-May opener produced relatively few fish, resulting in high risk with little reward for processors who spent tens of thousands of dollars on fishing tender contracts, processing crews and other costs. 

“Our biggest selling point is quality,” said Wheeler, whose company will process salmon in Cordova for its eighth year in 2025. No special promotions are planned, he said.

Wheeler operates 60° North, selling wholesale, while his wife, Sena, manages the retail entity Sena Sea, delivering to customers nationwide.

Sena Wheeler is descended from a long line of Norwegian fishermen, including her grandfather Lars Jangaard, who immigrated from Norway with his brothers and began commercial fishing in Alaska in 1938. Sena’s father Art Hodgins began in the industry when he married Jangaard’s daughter Mary. He fished for 30 years.

Also working with the Wheelers in their businesses are their children Hugh,19, Vansee, 16. and Eedee, 13.

The industry veterans’ marketing optimism is not shared by Kristen Smith, executive director of the Prince William Sound Economic Development District.

In the past, there were years when for three weeks, the only fresh Alaska salmon on the market was from Copper River. Then it was two weeks, she said.

“When there are other fish on the market, the price will come down,” she predicted.