Anticipation is building in the Dillingham harbor as crews get their boats ready. Despite some concerns over processor consolidation and declining king runs, crews seem optimistic about the season’s high base prices and strong sockeye forecasts.
Hot dogs, upcycled cork sculptures, and music were all in abundance at the harbor this Saturday during Dillingham’s Harbor Day festivities.
A few hours in, organizers rang a bell during its 37th annual Blessing of the Fleet to commemorate lives lost at sea. At the ceremony, pastors from Dillingham’s churches offered prayers for a safe and abundant fishing season.
Down at the docks, many crews spent the week waiting on a sockeye opening in the Nushagak District, like Peter Oswald and and his daughter Willlow, mending nets aboard the F/V Williwaw.
“We're waiting for the Nush to open, just doing the final preparations in anticipation of the opener,” Oswald said. “The fish are coming.”
Oswald used to fish for OBI Seafoods until it was acquired by Silver Bay Seafoods last year. He now fishes for Silver Bay, which announced a sockeye base price for the season of $1.60 per pound.
“I appreciate that the processors are giving us a pre-season base price,” he said. “It always worries me that there might not be any kind of adjustments after that, but at least what we're starting out with this year is decent.”
Over the last few years, Silver Bay’s processing operations have expanded in both Bristol Bay and across the state. The processor acquired multiple Bristol Bay facilities from Peter Pan Seafoods in 2024, a year before it took over OBI’s plants in the region.
This season, Silver Bay will also be delivering to the Hannah, a floating processing facility owned by former competitor Northline Seafoods, in a custom processing arrangement. Oswald said this consolidation concerns him.
“Silver Bay so far from my perspective has been treating us well, but when you have a consolidation like that, and Silver Bay has not quite half the fleet but close to it, that's something to pay attention to,” he said.
Dave Rogitzki on the F/V Kanista has fished Bristol Bay for 44 years. He used to fish for Peter Pan and is now fishing for Silver Bay, too.
“We had talked about going to Egegik or maybe Ugashik,” he said. “But we're not there, and at this point on the 24th we're just gonna wait for that first opening here, which hopefully is imminent.”
Rogotzki said he is also feeling optimistic about Silver Bay’s base price this season.
“We haven't had prices like this for a long time, so it's starting out great,” he said.
Rogotzki said he is thrilled about the season’s forecast, and the strong sockeye returns over the last few years. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game predicts an 18.4 million fish in-shore run in the Nushagak District this season, and a bay-wide forecast of over 44 million fish.
“A 19 million fish prediction for just this river alone – it's really something to be part of,” Rogotzki said. “It'd be something like that you and I would witness if we went to the Great Plains, and there were 3 million bison on the Great Plains, but they're not there anymore and this is still here.”
Despite strong sockeye forecasts in the Nushagak, Rogotzki says he’s concerned about the decline of king salmon he’s seen throughout his decades of fishing in Bristol Bay.
“There's so few,” he said. “Having been here for 44 years and seeing what those runs used to be like, it's really unfortunate.”
New regulations that will go into effect July 12 require king salmon caught in commercial gillnets be retained, which fishermen must then either sell or donate. The change is in response to declining king salmon populations, which were first designated as a stock of concern in the Nushagak district in 2022.
Dave Rogotzki said even though there’s no Nushagak opening yet, the sockeye are on their way back en masse.
“There's kind of a calmness to it at this point, because nothing's happened yet,” he said. “But it sounds great with good indications of fish swimming this way from the Port Moller test fishery.”
According to the June 20–21 stock composition analysis at the Port Moller test fishery, over a third of sampled sockeye were on their way back to the Nushagak River.
Get in touch with the author at jessie@kdlg.org
