Tanner crab fisheries will likely open in January for Kodiak, the South Alaska Peninsula and Chignik, but a final decision won’t be made until November, said Cassandra Whiteside, assistant shellfish/groundfish management biologist for the region for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG).
All information currently available is preliminary, Whiteside said Monday.
Preliminary expectations are that the guideline harvest range (GHL) for Kodiak will be about 2-3 million pounds, about half of last year, based on the trawl survey for the abundance index completed about two weeks ago, Whiteside said. Last year the GHL for Kodiak was 5.8 million pounds, plus 1.1 million pounds for the South Peninsula, and 400,000 pounds for Chignik.
For the South Peninsula area ADFG is looking at opening one or two sections of the Southcentral district, which is divided between the eastern and western sections. Last year both areas were open.
Whether the Chignik Tanner crab fishery will open in January is also still undetermined.
Meanwhile harvests in the Dungeness crab fishery, which opened several months ago, are still above historical averages, Whiteside said. That fishery closes at the end of October.
