Togiak herring has 38,000-ton quota

Two purse seiners and one gillnet harvester held Alaska Department of Fish and Game permits for the herring fishery that opened on May 3 at Togiak, with a quota of 38,000 tons, up from 25,000 tons a year ago.

ADF&G biologists said a large amount of herring biomass was observed outside of Hagemeister Spit and that an estimated 40,000 tons of herring appeared to be moving in toward Hagemeister Straights. The fishery did not get underway immediately due to a large amount of fog over fishing grounds, said Tim Sands, area management biologist at Dillingham.

The fishing area for seiners lies from Togiak Reef to Cape Newenham and from Right Hand Point to Anchor Point, while the Egg Island Section was open for gillnetters.

Under state health mandates in effect because of the novel coronavirus pandemic, commercial fishing is an essential business and part of Alaska’s essential services and critical infrastructure.

Commercial fishermen were reminded to ensure that all travel and other activities in support of commercial fishing operations follow protocols in those COVID-19 mandates, which can be found at gov.alaska.gov/home/covid19-healthmandates.

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