The winter season allows good fishing of king salmon and there are many commercial fishing boats that have been rigged by their owners to fish for king salmon for their own personal use. This is also “A” season in the pollock fishery in the Gulf of Alaska. These powerful fishing vessels are out dragging huge nets through Shelikof Straits targeting pollock.
Most of the pollock vessels missed Pollock and catch Chinook salmon which are discarded. What a waste. Some (about 30 percent) of these vessels are observed. Most go about their business without any limit to chinook bycatch and without any accounting of what is discarded.
The lovers of salmon should come and speak up about this. In recent years, there has been a statewide shortage of king salmon in the rivers. Many have been closed to fishing for king salmon because minimum escapement goals have not been met. There are many factors that affect this decline and we must all take steps to try to reverse this trend.
Every group of fishermen should try to make minimum discard. The trawl fleet must take responsibility for this waste and take drastic measures to reverse it. In 2010, the level of chinook bycatch reached an unprecedented level. Nearly 60,000 chinook were observed in this fishery by year’s end. This is unacceptable and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council needs to hear from you, who love chinook salmon, that the time has come to bring this waste to a halt.
The council will discuss chinook bycatch in its next meeting. The fish managers hear from industry all the time as to why this is just “part of the game,” but it is time for them to hear from us that this is unacceptable.
