Commercial fishing in the Togiak herring district is underway, with an allocation of 16,060 tons for the seiners and 6,883 tons for gillnetters.
As of May 2, the cumulative harvest for the purse seine harvesters was 7,980 tons with a reported roe percentage of 10.8 percent and an average size of 424 grams.
That included purse seine catches of 3,375 tons on May 1 and 2,325 on May 2.
The season had opened on April 28, but the fish were not yet mature enough to harvest, said Tim Sands, area biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at Dillingham.
There are currently eight gillnetters and 19 seiners fishing, but Sands said he expected to see 19 vessels in each fleet by the end of the season. Last year there were just three gillnetters on this fishery.
“They are optimistic about the price; hoping for a better price than last year,” Sands said. The value of the 2016 fisher was estimated at $1.52 million, based on $100 per ton, but without post-season adjustments.
Department staff flew a survey of the Togiak herring district on April 28 under poor conditions and observed herring along Cape Constantine, outside of Kulukak Bay, in the northeast corner of Togiak Bay and along the east face of Hagemeiter Island.
They were able to document a threshold biomass of 35,000 tons of herring on that survey, ADF&G biologists said.
