Make your shipyard project a success OREGON DUNGENESS CRAB COMMISSION www.pacificfishing.com THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR FISHERMEN n SEPTEMBER 2015 Inside Sitka US $2.95/CAN. $3.95 09 • Bristol Bay frustration 63126 • Halibut tale: ‘Fast Hands’ FRED WAHL MARINE CONSTRUCTION, INC. 100 PORT DOCK ROAD – REEDSPORT – OR 97467 TEL: 541-271-5720 – FAX 541-271-4349 EMAIL: [email protected] – WEB: www.fredwahlmarine.com F/V Oracle All of us here at Fred Wahl Marine Construction would like to thank Buck Laukitis and family for choosing us to build their new 58'x28' Fishing Vessel Oracle. IN THIS ISSUE Editor's note Wesley Loy ® Bittersweet THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE FOR FISHERMEN INSIDE: Bristol Bay Bristol Bay is one of the greatest spectacles in commercial fishing anywhere in the world. Because the fishery is so big, the surprises can be big, too. And the disappointments. This season’s surprise was how the fishery, after a maddeningly slow start, finished with a late explosion. The final catch of nearly 36 million sockeye came close to meeting the huge preseason forecast. As for disappointment, it was the sorry price of fish. To many, the 50 cents Inside Sitka • Page 8 per pound paid by the major processors was an affront. The Deckboss blog crackled with bitterness and sarcasm over the news. Among the comments: What a terrible way to treat the fishermen. Next season, instead of kissing my first fish, I will throw it back. Better to let them spawn than give them up for a loss. Thank the scabs from years ago. Others offered different perspectives: Shipyard planning • Page 12 If 50 cents is so cheap, why don’t you start buying sockeye instead of selling sockeye? The fair price of anything is what a buyer is willing to pay. If you don’t like it, drive your fish to Seattle or fish somewhere other than the middle of nowhere with a limited market. Scabs from 20 years ago caused this? Dude, give it up, get over it. Relations, it seems, have never been great between Bristol Bay gillnetters Around the Yards • Page 26 and the companies that process and pack the fish. Both sides take serious financial risks to operate in the remote bay. The fishermen go to work and deliver the sockeye, not knowing what or whether they’ll be paid. The processors take shiploads of fish on the hope that they can sell it at a profit. Book excerpt Many fishermen believe Bristol Bay salmon is a premium product the true • Page 28 value of which simply never trickles down from the processors. With this year’s low price comes debate about what to do about it. In the past, we’ve seen the fleet try to organize fishing strikes against the proces- sors. Some say it’s high time for price negotiations between the fishermen and packers, perhaps with state involvement. Others stress the need for improv- ing Bristol Bay fish quality, or consolidating permits. Still others point to the ON THE COVER: Seiners in Sitka Channel at sunrise, example of Silver Bay Seafoods, a new processor in which fishermen them- March 2014. Photo by James Poulson, Daily Sitka selves are the owners. Sentinel In the coming months, some processors might pay fishermen bonuses based in part on the success of their sales efforts. One commenter on Deckboss allud- ed to this, writing: VOLUME XXXVI, NO. 9 • SEPTEMBER 2015 Pacific Fishing (ISSN 0195-6515) is published 12 times a year (monthly) by Pacific Let’s let the market settle out. If we don’t see major movements in price once the Fishing Magazine. Editorial, Circulation, and Advertising offices at 1028 Industry sales data comes in, that’s when we start talking scorched earth. Drive, Seattle, WA 98188, U.S.A. Telephone (206) 324-5644. Subscriptions: One-year rate for U.S., $18.75, two-year $30.75, three-year $39.75; Canadian subscriptions paid in U.S. funds add $10 per year. Canadian subscriptions paid in We here at Pacific Fishing can’t really say what should be done about Canadian funds add $10 per year. Other foreign surface is $36 per year; foreign this year’s Bristol Bay price disappointment. I would suggest, however, that airmail is $84 per year. The publisher of Pacific Fishing makes no warranty, express or implied, nor assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the relations between the two sectors could be greatly improved if processors information contained in Pacific Fishing. Periodicals postage paid at Seattle, could somehow pull back the curtain on how they set prices and sell all those Washington. Postmaster: Send address changes to Pacific Fishing, 1028 Industry Drive, Seattle, WA 98188. Copyright © 2015 by Pacific Fishing Magazine. Contents superb sockeye. may not be reproduced without permission. POST OFFICE: Please send address changes to Pacific Fishing, 1028 Industry Drive, Seattle, WA 98188 WWW.PACIFICFISHING.COM £ SEPTEMBER 2015 £ PACIFICFISHING 3 YOUR BUSINESS Keeping up PREFERRED PUBLICATION OF: It’s FREE! It’s DAILY!* It’s the best commercial fishing news digest ALASKA INDEPENDENT Fish available in the North Pacific. Here’s some of FISHERMEN’S MARKETING ASSOC. Wrap what you missed by not reading FishWrap. CORDOVA DISTRICT FISHERMEN UNITED Bristol Bay heats up: Landings are beginning to Red Lobster’s Alaska partnership: The world’s mount in the world’s top sockeye salmon fishery. largest seafood restaurant company features OREGON DUNGENESS – deckboss.blogspot.com wild-caught Alaska crab and salmon and puts CRAB COMMISSION Processor deal: Marubeni subsidiary North the ASMI logo on its menus. – prnewswire.com UNITED FISHERMEN Pacific Seafoods will acquire two Cook Inlet Settling up: With the Bristol Bay fishing season OF ALASKA salmon plants from Inlet Fish Producers. at an end, at least one major processor is sending - marubeni.com its gillnetters home with a base payment of 50 WASHINGTON DUNGENESS cents per pound for their sockeye catches. CRAB FISHERMEN’S ASSOC. Bristol Bay bust? Gillnetters had taken only about 8 million sockeye salmon through the – deckboss.blogspot.com WASHINGTON REEF NET Fourth of July, traditionally the peak of the Maruha Nichiro in the village: A community OWNERS ASSOC. season. This suggests the state’s harvest forecast development quota company hosts executives WESTERN FISHBOAT of 37.6 million fish is out of reach. from the Japanese seafood giant on a tour of OWNERS ASSOC. – deckboss.blogspot.com Alaska’s outback. – coastalvillages.org Beach sweep: A major marine debris Alaska Board of Fisheries to meet today: The removal effort is underway in Alaska. board will consider an emergency petition from – deckboss.blogspot.com salmon gillnetters in Bristol Bay’s Togiak fishing To Subscribe: Pushing tin: Efforts are afoot to enhance the district. – deckboss.blogspot.com www.pacificfishing.com consumer appeal of canned Alaska salmon. Hauling them in: The Alaska Department of Ph: (206) 324-5644, ext. 221 – scribd.com Fish and Game’s “blue sheet” report shows the Main Office ‘Supposedly sustainable’: An online report state’s all-species salmon harvest has topped 100 1028 INDUSTRY DRIVE million fish. – deckboss.blogspot.com TUKWILA, WA 98188 asserts the Bering Sea pollock fishery is harming PH: (206) 324-5644 Alaska Natives. – kdlg.org Celebrating Bristol Bay: Fleet association Steller reward: A commercial fishing organiza- reviews “historic and thrilling” sockeye season. Chairman/CEO/Publisher tion is offering $5,000 for information leading to a – scribd.com MIKE DAIGLE [email protected] conviction in the case of a Steller sea lion slaugh- Scratch fishing: Salmon are still returning to Associate Publisher ter last month near Cordova. That brings the total Bristol Bay, including silvers, but buyers are CHRISTIE DAIGLE reward to $7,500. – alaskafisheries.noaa.gov becoming scarce. – kdlg.org [email protected] Bristol Bay busts out: After a slow start for Slow going: Pink salmon catches in Southeast EDITORIAL CONTENT: the Bristol Bay sockeye fishery, the salmon Alaska remain below average. – kfsk.org Editor surge in and gillnetters land millions. Southern strategy: Trident Seafoods opens WESLEY LOY – deckboss.blogspot.com a new $40 million seafood processing and distri- [email protected] Ph: (206) 324-5644, ext. 234 Fraser River sockeye forecast: There is a 50 bution facility in Georgia. – times-georgian.com Field Editor percent probability of about 6.8 million fish 215 fine ideas: The Alaska Board of Fisheries MICHEL DROUIN returning, DFO says. – notices.dfo-mpo.gc.ca has released the proposal book for its upcoming Copy Editor BRIANNA MORGAN Still coming: The Bristol Bay sockeye salmon winter meeting cycle. Bristol Bay finfish is the catch reaches 23 million fish. – kdlg.org main event. – adfg.alaska.gov PRODUCTION OPERATIONS: Incumbent cash: Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, up Alaska’s anti-setnet debate: With ballot measure Production Manager for re-election next year, reports raising nearly looming, Kenai salmon setnetters ponder their DAVID SALDANA [email protected] $1.1 million in the latest quarter. – adn.com future. – adn.com Art Director, Design & Layout Crabbing time: The Alaska Department of Fish Surplus salmon sale: The U.S. Department of ERIN DOWNWARD [email protected] and Game announces Aleutian Islands golden Agriculture plans to buy up to $30 million in king crab quotas and says the season will open canned Alaska sockeye, Sen. Lisa Murkowski says. SALES & MARKETING: Aug. 1. – adfg.alaska.gov – murkowski.senate.gov Advertising Sales Manager Salmon notes: The Southeast Alaska summer Community cash: Bering Sea fishing DIANE SANDVIK Ph: (206) 920-5516 troll Chinook season is done, and pink salmon operation profits topped $35M, CVRF says. [email protected] seiners set a record in Prince William Sound. – coastalvillages.org Ad Support – deckboss.blogspot.com CANDICE EGAN Ph: (206) 324-5644, ext.