Page 125 – Fishermens News

Bristol Bay Bracing for a Season Like None Other

1Jun

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Features

Bristol Bay Bracing for a Season Like None Other

By Margaret Bauman For millions of wild sockeye salmon returning to Bristol Bay in 2020 it will be the traditional journey, but for thousands of people coming to harvest and process the world’s largest run of red salmon it will be a fishing season like none other. Veteran harvesters like Robert Heyano of Dillingham, said he plans to fish the Nushagak area of Bristol Bay, just as he has since he was a boy on board his dad’s drift gillnetter. “I’m not looking forward to it this year, not with this virus,” he said. “I’d like to see the fishery conducted in a safe manner.” Heyano said he had not heard fishermen say outright that they would not fish this year because of COVID-19. “It all depends how safe they feel,” he said. “If we could focus our energy on the safest practices that wo...

Second Gulf of Alaska Salmon Expedition <br>Returns with New Data

1Jun

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Second Gulf of Alaska Salmon Expedition
Returns with New Data

A second Gulf of Alaska expedition effort of the International Year of the Salmon and Pacific Salmon Foundation has concluded, with new data gathered toward a goal of providing an early measure of the numbers of salmon that will return to North American rivers. Expedition leaders announced in late April that the international team of researchers reached Victoria Harbor, British Columbia, on April 7. The expedition came in the wake of a voyage last year aboard the Russian research vessel the R/V Professor Kaganovskiy that engaged in similar studies in the Gulf of Alaska. During the second expedition, there were 51 stations spread over the southern Gulf of Alaska, each about eight hours apart. Researchers conducted extensive oceanographic measurements and a trawl net fished at the surf...

Pandemic Prompts Boost in SeaShare Donations

1Jun

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Pandemic Prompts Boost in SeaShare Donations

SeaShare’s effort to provide high quality portions of seafood to food banks nationwide has moved into high gear in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which has left millions of Americans unemployed and struggling to put food on their tables. The Seattle-based nonprofit, with a growing number of several hundred partners and donors, is able to turn every dollar donated into eight servings of seafood for those in need. In early April E & E Foods donated 110,000 pounds of nutritious wild Alaska smelt to SeaShare, which helped coordinate the first delivery of 30,000 pounds, or 120,000 servings to the Food Bank of Alaska, with three more similarly sized donations scheduled to address the growing needs in communities hit economically by the COVID-19 virus. Transportation lo...

COVID-19 Prompts Copper River Seafoods <br>to Find New Markets

1Jun

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COVID-19 Prompts Copper River Seafoods
to Find New Markets

When the novel coronavirus pandemic forced Anchorage area restaurants to close their doors, Copper River Seafoods scrambled quickly into retail mode, selling frozen portioned inventory at bargain prices to people suddenly facing food insecurity. “Due to restaurants shutting their doors, the local wholesale market demand dropped almost overnight,” said Jim Kostka, marketing director for Copper River Seafoods. With the market shifting rapidly, Kostka quickly devised a plan that would move frozen portioned inventory while helping a lot of people who had suddenly lost their jobs. “Since CRS had inventory that was destined to the local restaurants, we cut prices to respond to the local demand and give back to our community,” he said. His plan began to take shape when the first three...

1Jun

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Gearing Up

By Norris Comer A letter from a deckhand of the F/V Carmalee, a salmon tender working Chignik Lagoon, Alaska. Note: Roy was a suspender wearing, volunteer firefighter and avid angler of the Lake Minnetonka area of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was the author’s non-blood related uncle who took him fishing back in the day. Roy passed away in 2004. Dear Uncle Roy, I sit on my porch watching the sunrise and think; are the fish biting on Lake Minnetonka? Of course, when I think about the lake, I think of you. As they say in Minnesota, how the heck are ya? At the time of this writing, the Alaskan commercial fishing season is gearing up. I don’t know if you heard through the family grapevine, but I got a job this summer as a deckhand on a salmon tender way out there in Chignik. The F/...

1Jun

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Vessel Profile

Bristol Bay: More Than Ready

By Allan Haig-Brown In late April of 2020, the Bristol Bay sockeye gillnet season was being eyed with much trepidation. Covid-19 had much of the US in lock down to one degree or another. The challenges of bringing hundreds of cannery workers and fishermen to Bristol Bay in time for the month of June sockeye-opener was being discussed in detail. In late April there were reports that some fishermen had decided not to risk the expense of getting their boats ready for the season. One fisherman who had no such hesitation, was Olin Green whose company, OG Ventures, had just taken delivery of his brand-new boat. And what a boat it is! The aluminum welding was done by Velocity Marine & Fabrication in Sedro-Wooley, Washington and finishing was done by Rozema Boat Works of Mt. Vernon, Wash...

1Jun

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Vessel Profile

Vessel Profile: Daddy O

By Peter Marsh The Maritime Fabrications company was established 40 years ago by “Maritime Ed” Oczkewicz (pronounced Ozkaweez) and has been supplying its popular brand of deck gear to fishermen on the Northwest Coast and Alaska ever since. Although the company name has become synonymous with its successful gillnet equipment, there is far more to the business: more than half the space in their factory in La Conner, Washington is devoted to boat building and repairs, with a full fiberglass molding set up and the aluminum fabrication shop, which also produces parts for the deck machinery. Ed began fishing in Alaska in the 1980’s, but his interest in hull shape and construction really began with the purchase of the tooling for his first gillnetter – a 32-foot fiberglass Westbrook boat – ...

1Jun

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Moving Boats by Truck

By Ray Williams Until 1938 the fishermen who lived in Cordova would travel from Cordova to Williamsport (formerly Iliamna Bay) via boat. From there, they would hike the 15 miles to Iliamna Lake where they would launch their sailboat, which they had left the previous fall. They would travel via sail or by rowing, down Iliamna Lake to the Kvichak River. They traveled the river to its mouth and then on to the various towns of Bristol Bay. In the fall the cycle was reversed, but a powered barge would tow them up the Kvichak River to Iliamna Lake, or at least part way. In 1938 the Cordova fishermen approached my father, Carl Williams, asking if he would be able and willing to transport their boats over the portage road to and from Iliamna Lake. This request started a business, Iliamna Tra...

27May

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Latest Pebble Plan Bump Hinges on Mine Access

Federal officials tasked with deciding whether to issue a crucial permit for the proposed Pebble mine, in Southwest Alaska, have identified as a preferred transportation route acreage owned by Alaska Native entities adamantly opposed to the mine. The decision announced on Friday, May 22, by the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), identified the 82-mile two lane access road along the northern shore of Lake Iliamna as the least environmentally damaging way to develop a wetlands mitigation plan for the mine. The choice of a northern transportation route would change the port site for the mine to Diamond Point, which lies further north on Cook Inlet. The USACE announcement was hailed as good news by Tom Collier, chief executive officer of the Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) in Anchorage, A...

27May

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2020 Research Surveys for Alaska Waters Canceled

Federal fisheries officials have canceled five large-scale research surveys in federal waters off Alaska in 2020 in an effort to protect their crews and communities associated with the surveys from spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic. NOAA Fisheries officials said on May 22 that it was a difficult decision to make, while balancing their core mission and the realities and impacts of the pandemic. The cancelations include the Aleutian Islands bottom trawl survey, the Eastern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey, the northern Bering Sea bottom trawl survey, the Bering Sea Pollock acoustics survey and the fall ecosystem survey. The annual Alaska longline survey will take place as planned. NOAA Fisheries said that after two months of careful planning and rigorous analysis of various options ...