Togiak Herring Forecast Released

It looks like the largest herring fishery in Alaska could get a little bigger next year based on a larger forecast and bigger harvest quota. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued the 2015 Togiak Herring Forecast on Thursday. The forecasted biomass for next year is 163.4-thousand tons. That’s up from this year’s forecasted biomass of 157.4-thousand tons. The total allowable harvest of the Togiak herring biomass is set at 20-percent, which equals out to 32.6-thousand tons. 1.5-thousand tons of herring is set aside for the non-existent Togiak spawn on kelp fishery. The allocation for the Dutch Harbor food and bait fishery will be 2.1-thousand tons next year. That leaves just over 29-thousand tons for the Togiak sac-roe fishery, which is the largest herring fishery in Alaska. This year the quota was 27.8-thousand tons. There are 2-gear groups in the Togiak sac-roe fishery. The purse seiners are allocated 70-percent of the quota, which equals out to 20.3-thousand tons. The gillnetters get 30-percent of the quota, which will be 8.7-thousand tons next year. This year the 17 purse seiners that participated in the fishery harvested 18.6-thousand tons of herring. The 24 gillnetters that participated in the Togiak fishery harvested 6.4-thousand tons of herring. It’s unknown how many processors will participate in next year’s Togiak herring fishery but it’s likely that the 5 companies that bought herring this year will be back next year. A closer look at the 2015 forecast shows that Fish and Game is expecting that 50-percent of the herring biomass next year will be age 9 to 11 herring. 27-percent of the biomass is expected to be age 7 and 8 herring. The 2015 Togiak Herring forecast can be found of the ADF&G Bristol Bay website.