The 2014 Togiak sac-roe herring fishery is officially closed. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game ordered the closure on Wednesday after all of the processors stopped buying fish. Tim Sands is the Area Management Biologist for the Division of Commercial Fisheries. He characterized this year’s fishery as a success.
“We were able to provide lots of fishing opportunity. The weather was good. We documented lots of spawn and we believe the biomass is healthy.”
When it was all said and done, commercial fishermen hauled in just over 25-thousand tons of herring. The total quota available was 27.8-thousand tons. The purse seine fleet hauled in over 18.6-thousand tons of their 19.5-thousand ton quota. That equal’s 96-percent of the quota. The gillnetters hauled in over 6.4-thousand tons of herring. That’s about 77-percent of their quota of 8.3-thousand tons. 6 companies participated in this year’s fishery including Silver Bay Seafood’s, Togiak Fisheries, Icicle, Trident, Yard Arm Knot, and Leader Creek. The price that fishermen are getting for their catch is still not finalized but it’s expected to be quite a bit lower than last year’s initial grounds price of $100-dollars a ton.