Tag: bristolbay

Bristol Bay Harvester Hawks Gillnetter at Pacific Marine Expo
4Dec By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Bristol Bay Harvester Hawks Gillnetter at Pacific Marine Expo

Veteran Bristol Bay salmon harvester Leslie Stambaugh was on the move at the 2024 Pacific Marine Expo in Seattle, eager to talk with anyone willing to listen about the 32-foot drift gillnetter he has for sale. Stambaugh kept a steady pace from Nov. 20-22, through the vast open spaces at the Lumen Field Event Center filled with some 380 trade show booths, attracting attention from many folks manning and visiting the booths. Pacific Marine Expo, billed as the largest annual gathering of the commercial maritime industry on the West Coast, attracts several thousand individuals, businesses, government agencies and non-profits with links to maritime and commercial fisheries. “My wife just wants me to quit fishing; she wants me home,” said Stambaugh, 70, of Green Valley, Arizona, whe...
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51M Fish Forecast for Bristol Bay Salmon Run
13Nov By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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51M Fish Forecast for Bristol Bay Salmon Run

A Bristol Bay 2025 sockeye salmon run forecast estimating a return of 51.31 million fish and a potential harvest of 36.33 million fish was released Nov. 7 by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The forecast is 16% smaller than the most recent 10-year average of 61.23 million fish and 38% greater than the long-term average of 37.07 million fish (1963-2024). A run of 51.31 million sockeye salmon would allow for a potential harvestable surplus of 36.33 million fish: 34.78 million fish in Bristol Bay and 1.55 million fish in the South Peninsula June fishery. ADF&G biologists said that a Bristol Bay inshore harvest of this size would be 15% less than the most recent 10-year average harvest of 40.91 million and 50% greater than the long-term average harvest of 23.27 million ...
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Bristol Bay Red King, Tanner, Snow Crab TACs Set For 2024-25
9Oct By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Bristol Bay Red King, Tanner, Snow Crab TACs Set For 2024-25

Commercial fisheries for Bristol Bay red king crab and Bering Sea tanner crab opened with increased quotas on Oct. 15, and the Bering Sea snow crab season reopened with a total allowable catch of 4.7 million pounds. "After these tough closure years, we're happy to see some of our vessels heading back to the crab grounds and communities participating in these fisheries again,” Jamie Goen, the executive director of Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers, and a member of the North Pacific Fishery Management Council, said. “We’re feeling cautiously optimistic that the crab stock is starting to recover. But our work isn't done,” Goen said. “It's critical that we keep working for habitat protections, stock rebuilding and the overall tools that the crab resource and crab industry need to build resi...
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Three Alaskans Receive Bristol Bay Corp.’s ‘Fish First’ Awards
18Sep By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Three Alaskans Receive Bristol Bay Corp.’s ‘Fish First’ Awards

The Indigenous-owned, Anchorage-based Bristol Bay Native Corporation (BBNC) honored three Alaskans recently during the seventh Bristol Bay Wild Salmon celebration in Washington, D.C. The Fish First honors announced Sept. 16 were for those who support and champion Bristol Bay and its wild salmon. This year’s honors went to Tim Troll, Triston Chaney and the late Mary Olympic. Troll is the executive director of the Bristol Bay Heritage Land Trust, which he helped create in 1999 to preserve places of cultural and biological importance in the Bristol Bay region. Chaney is a flyfishing guide from Dillingham who has fished commercially with his family to help pay his way through college. Olympic, who died in 2015, was a respected Aleut/Yup'ik elder from Igiugig, whose life represente...
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Bristol Bay 2025 Advisory Forecast Projects a 49.6M Salmon Run
28Aug By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Bristol Bay 2025 Advisory Forecast Projects a 49.6M Salmon Run

A preliminary preseason forecast for the 2025 Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery projects a run of 49.6 million fish returning to the bay, with a projected harvest of 32.4 million reds, based on data from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The forecast from fisheries biologists with the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, released on Aug. 15, came prior to finalized in-season data for the 2024 run and the formal run reconstruction process. Study authors said it should be considered strictly advisory rather than a formal forecast, given its lower accuracy and aggregated summary across stocks. The very early forecast was prompted by the Bristol Bay fisheries community expressing interest in a preliminary p...
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Nushagak District Leads Bristol Bay Harvest, Where Overall Catch Reaches Nearly 25M Fish
17Jul By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Nushagak District Leads Bristol Bay Harvest, Where Overall Catch Reaches Nearly 25M Fish

Commercial harvesters in Bristol Bay's Nushagak District have brought in nearly 11 million salmon to date in the 2024 fishery, and with the other bay districts have delivered a total of more than 24 million pounds of salmon to processors. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game notes that the statewide catch estimate for the commercial salmon fishery reached 38.2 million pounds as of July 1, up from 25 million salmon on July 9. It's been a tough season for commercial fishermen in the Naknek-Kvichak district, however. ADF&G biologist Travis Elison, in Dillingham, says the anticipated run forecast of 5.5 million salmon is likely to end up being below two million fish, and what happened to the rest of the forecasted run is unknown. Elison said the last time the Naknek-Kvichak ...
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Northline Seafoods Barge Heads for Bristol Bay
5Jun By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Northline Seafoods Barge Heads for Bristol Bay

Northline Seafoods’ new vertically integrated barge, equipped to buy, freeze, ship, store and distribute wild Alaska salmon, is expected to make its debut this summer in the Bristol Bay wild salmon fishery, with a capacity to hold more than 10 million pounds of fresh fish. The barge would be located at Clarks Point in the Nushagak district to buy fish from all Bristol Bay fishing districts. The Hannah’s departure on May 25 from Fairhaven Shipyard in Bellingham, Wash. marks the completion of a more than three-year project, including 15 months of construction. Seeing the Hannah depart for the Bristol Bay fishery “is a dream come true,” Northline Seafoods CEO Ben Blakey said in a May 28 statement, confirming the maiden voyage of the barge. Blakey said that the successful compl...
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Pebble, State of Alaska, Back in Court Regarding Mine Defense
20Mar By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Pebble, State of Alaska, Back in Court Regarding Mine Defense

A Canadian mining company intent on building a copper, gold and molybdenum mine abutting the Bristol Bay watershed has renewed litigation, seeking to overturn the Environmental Protection Agency veto of permits for the Pebble Mine. The lawsuit filed in federal district court in Alaska on Friday, March 15, came on the heels of the state of Alaska’s lawsuit filed March 14 in the U.S. federal claims court asking for more than $700 billion in damages for state lands that Alaska contends were confiscated. Ron Thiessen, president and CEO of Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. (NDM) in Vancouver, British Columbia, said his company’s priority is to advance the district federal court complaint because overturning the illegal veto removes a major impediment from getting the permit to build the ...
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Bristol Bay Red King Crab Fishery Scheduled to Open Oct. 15
11Oct By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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Bristol Bay Red King Crab Fishery Scheduled to Open Oct. 15

Alaska’s Bristol Bay red king crab fishery is set to open at noon on Oct. 15 after being closed for two years due to stocks not meeting minimal levels for fishing. The set quota is 2.15 million pounds, just slightly lower than the 2020 opener of 2.6 million pounds. The announcement from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) was cheered by long time drabber captains like Glenn Casto of the f/v Pinnacle, who called it a start in the right direction that would help pay bills and help out crew. Veteran crab captains Oystein Lone, and Gabriel Prout also praised the decision to let them fish. “It’s a needed lifeline for us to keep our businesses afloat,” said Lone, captain and owner of the f/v Confidence and f/v Pacific Mariner. “The impacts the fleet and the stock cont...
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2023 Runs to All Bristol Bay Districts Exceed Forecasts
27Sep By Fishermen's NewsNo Comments
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2023 Runs to All Bristol Bay Districts Exceed Forecasts

Preliminary data compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game show that the run of sockeye salmon run to Bristol Bay in 2023 was 54.5 million fish, with runs to every district within this easternmost arm of the Bering Sea exceeding preseason forecasts. Data show that the run itself was the eighth largest inshore run since 2003 and 17% above the 46.7 million average run for the latest 20-year period, stretching from 2003 to 2022. All sockeye salmon escapement goals were met or exceeded, with a total bay-wide escapement of 13.9 million fish, according to the preliminary document issued on Sept. 22. The ex-vessel value of salmon harvested in Bristol Bay in 2023, calculated by using the fish ticket weight and price paid for each species, totaled $117.4 million for all salmon...
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