We've teamed up with Northwest Farm Credit Services and Sea-Mountain Insurance to offer a FREE workshop on purchasing, financing, and insuring your next commercial fishing vessel!

We've teamed up with Northwest Farm Credit Services and Sea-Mountain Insurance to offer a FREE workshop on purchasing, financing, and insuring your next commercial fishing vessel!

We've teamed up with Northwest Farm Credit Services and Sea-Mountain Insurance to offer a FREE workshop on purchasing, financing, and insuring your next commercial fishing vessel!

Fisheries are driven by numbers and there will be more ups than downs in 2022 catches for Alaska fishermen based on poundages set by the North Pacific Fishery Management Council. The NPFMC is a federal advisory...

It’s a fish trifecta for Alaska’s 2021 salmon season! The fishery produced the third highest catch, fish poundage and value on record dating back to 1975. According to preliminary harvests and values by region from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game...

Governor Mike Dunleavy is the “decider” for winners and losers in Alaska’s salmon season as the state careens towards a shutdown on July 1 due to no budget. As salmon fisheries swell, pink slips are in the hands of 15,000 state workers, including hundreds...

Alaskans who are engaged in or interested in mariculture are invited to become founding members in a new group that will advance the growing industry across the state. The newly formed Alaska Mariculture Alliance (AMA) is a private non-profit successor...

Eager buyers are awaiting Alaska salmon from fisheries that are opening almost daily across the state and it’s easy to track catches and market trends for every region. Fishery managers forecast a statewide catch topping...

Alaskan interest in growing kelp continues to outpace that of shellfish, based on applications filed during the annual window that runs from January through April. The number of 2021applicants dropped to just...

Grundens is using recycled plastics from old fishing gear for a new line of rugged casual wear, and the first batch contains contributions from Cordova. Grundens, whose motto is “We are fishing,” is the go-to brand for outer wear and foul-weather gear for mariners around the world. The company, which originated in...

Fishing for shellfish in Prince William Sound has been hit and miss this spring, with the Tanner crab fishery catch down significantly, but the pot shrimp fishery experiencing good catches and hot sales so far. The Cordova Times reports that...

Alaska’s lone seafood marketing arm gets zero budget from the state and to date, has received no pandemic funds. The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute is hoping to get a breather from the more than $1 billion coming to Alaska in the latest round of federal relief dollars under the...

Togiak herring got off to a slow start last week working on a record quota of 47,300 tons, in spite of increased participation, according to KDLG Public Radio in Dillingham. Ten seiners showed up for the season, along with ...

Alaska seafood has been getting a lot of national attention lately, and while the pandemic has been a struggle for many fishermen, it has been something of a boon for marketers. Third generation Alaska fisherman Hannah Heimbuch got her star turn on...

The budget for Alaska’s commercial fisheries division is facing no cuts for the upcoming fiscal year, assuming the current numbers make it through the Legislature. “The governor's proposed budget is at about $72.8 million, which is a slight increase from...

NOAA Fisheries has been pushing back against what it calls “disinformation” about a picture circulating on social media lately of two orca whales taken as bycatch in a trawl net in Alaska. They don't dispute that the photo is real, or say that...

Are toxins from road runoff a threat to salmon in Anchorage’s most popular fishing streams? A Go Fund Me campaign has been launched so Alaskans can chip in to find out. The push stems from an organic...

When the pandemic struck last year, some were calling for the State to shut down the Bristol Bay salmon season to avoid bringing thousands of workers from out of state into the small community of Dillingham to keep from overwhelming the limited health care system. Instead, processors spent millions quarantining...

“Insatiable” is the word being used to describe the demand for snow crab as the world’s largest fishery got underway on April 5 at Eastern Canada. And while more snow crab will be available this year, buyers expect a tight supply. Global seafood supplier...

The halibut season is off to a slow start in Homer, with so few deliveries that National Marine Fisheries Service doesn't list the landings because of privacy concerns. What landings have taken place on the Kenai Peninsula have been in Seward, which has seen 172,674 pounds delivered as of Monday. Even Kodiak, which...

Alaska fishermen displaced by the Covid pandemic are being recruited for seafaring jobs aboard U.S. cargo barges, tankers, towboats, military support vessels, research and cruise ships and more...

Tribes in Bristol Bay are collecting signatures to push the Alaska congressional delegation to provide permanent protection for the area through federal regulation. On their website, United Tribes of Bristol Bay say that there are two things that need to happen to...

The mask requirement for all persons aboard fishing vessels still stands and Alaska’s U.S. Senators are adding their clout to have it removed.

It’s “back to the future” for Alaska canned salmon as more Americans choose it for its health benefits and as an easy-to-use ingredient for sandwiches, salads and more. Salmon canning in Alaska started in...

After dealing with the closure of several processing plants in Dutch Harbor and Akutan due to COVID-19 outbreaks, Bering Sea crab fishermen now have to manage another costly and time-consuming problem: not enough fuel in St. Paul in the Pribilof Islands. By regulation under the...

Halibut prices for Alaska fishermen for 2021 started out significantly higher than last year, despite sluggish demand and transportation logjams in some regions. The Pacific halibut fishery opened...

It is pretty much old news that 2020 was not a great year for salmon in Alaska. Catches were down, prices took a hit due to the pandemic and fish didn't do what they were supposed to as climate change reared its ugly head. This year is looking better, largely due...

Alaska’s salmon harvest for 2021 is projected to be a big one with total catches producing a haul that could be 61% higher than last year, due mostly to an expected surge of pinks. Fishery managers are predicting ...

Alaska fisherman, doctor and former candidate for U.S. Senate Al Gross wrote an op-ed in the Anchorage Daily News on Monday proposing trading the land under the Pebble Mine prospect to the federal government for protection in exchange for extending state waters out to12 miles, from the current 3 miles. Gross argued that...

It’s likely that no other fishing regions of the world reach out for stakeholder input as much as Alaska does to gather policy-shaping ground truth by state and federal managers and organizations. That’s demonstrated by two...

For fishermen waiting to receive their halibut and sablefish IFQ permits in the mail as usual, the National Marine Fisheries Service is no longer sending them out. Fishermen have to...

The Pacific halibut fishery opens on March 6 and increased catch limits combined with a cautiously optimistic outlook for the near future have fanned interest in buying shares of the popular fish. In January, the International Pacific Halibut Commission...

The International Pacific Halibut Commission is seeking information from the past two years about the financial impact of COVID-19 in a trio of surveys for the commercial, processing and charter sectors. In a press statement, the IPHC stated “In order to...

Alaskans are preparing for another salmon season of poor to average runs to most regions. The big exception once again is at Bristol Bay where another massive return of more than 51 million sockeyes is expected. Managers predict that...

The global COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc in the fishing industry with processors continuing to pay tens of millions of dollars in related costs, the largest processing plant in North America being shut down for weeks, and the Coast Guard issuing...

Fishermen must wear masks while they are underway, even while sleeping, and the Coast Guard intends to enforce it. That’s an edict issued as a public health emergency by the Center for Disease Control in...

The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council is struggling with how to deal with three strong year classes of sablefish that are being caught in the directed fishery that are too small to be of much value but must be...

“Eye-popping” seafood sales continue; One Alaska king salmon is worth the same as two barrels of oil...

The International Pacific Halibut Commission held their 97th annual meeting this week, and voted to increase the quota in all areas of Alaska. The quotas in Alaska have mostly been going down for several years, with area 3A, the largest area in...

Pacific halibut harvesters got some rare good news last week: increased catches in 2021 along with a longer fishing season. At its annual meeting that ended on January 25, the International Pacific Halibut Commission boosted the coastwide removals for 2021 to 39 million pounds, a 6.53% increase over...

The IPHC voted this morning on the final catch limits for the 2021 Pacific halibut fishery. Here are the catch limits for the directed commercial fishery and the TCEY (Total Constant Exploitable Yield), or the total mortality from all sources for halibut over 26" for 2021.

The Canadian government is phasing out all of the open net pen salmon farms in the Discovery Islands in British Columbia over the next 18 months, under pressure from the First Nations, according to multiple news sources. Seafood Source reports that the mandate...

New ocean-related jobs, investments and opportunities will be seeded by an ambitious Blue Pipeline Venture Studio that connects marine business entrepreneurs with the technology, contacts and finances they need to grow. “The state's blue economy includes anything that takes...

Trawl fishermen targeting pollock in the Gulf of Alaska have collectively agreed to stand down from the January 20 start of the fishery in order to target the fish in their more lucrative phase of harvesting the roe, instead of the flesh of the fish which is used more in...

The single biggest hit to fishermen from the Covid-19 virus is lower dock prices, according to Alaska and West Coast harvesters, and 98% said their businesses have been badly bashed by the pandemic. That’s based on survey results compiled...

The Sitka Tribe of Alaska has won a second lawsuit challenging the State of Alaska's assertion that they are providing “reasonable opportunity” for subsistence harvest of herring roe in an ongoing battle pitting seiners and ADF&G against the Tribe. The latest ruling...

Is it a coincidence that one of the world’s largest mineral deposits is located near the world’s largest sockeye salmon spawning grounds at Bristol Bay? And if the likes of a Pebble Mine removed the bulk of those deep deposits that also create the world’s magnetic field, could it...

After a week of meetings, the NPFMC voted Thursay and Friday to adopt the recommended ABC, resulting in increases to the 2021 sablefish TAC of 25% across the GOA, 82% in BS, and 131% in AI. While the Council suggested that the science supports an increased catch, stakeholder concerns about the...

Below are ex-vessel values of sablefish over the last 20 years. These values do not represent seasonal highs, lows, or averages, rather they are a snapshot of prices midseason for each year. Do you have prices or data to share? Email us at office@alaskaboat.com. We appreciate being able to...

Upper Cook Inlet commercial salmon fishermen are alarmed at a proposal to eliminate commercial salmon fishing in the Exclusive Economic Zone, all salt-water areas beyond three miles, in the Inlet. The North Pacific Fisheries Management Council has been tasked with overseeing management of...

Bristol Bay is looking at a smaller sockeye season for 2021, but still in respectable territory. The projected run of 51 million sockeye would allow for a potential total harvest of 37.4 million fish in Bristol Bay and 1 million fish in the South Peninsula fisheries. That would put...

Some surprising results are revealed in the first of a series of briefing papers showing how Alaska’s seafood industry has been affected by the pandemic from dock to dinner plates. The updates, compiled by the McDowell Group for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute...

Bering Sea crabbers will soon know how much they can pull up in their pots for the upcoming season that opens October 15. This week the Crab Plan Team, advisers to state and federal fishery managers who jointly manage the fisheries, will review stock assessments and other science used to...