By SCOTT BOWLEN
Daily News Staff Writer
Herring returns to southern Southeast Alaska appeared strong in the Craig area but mixed around Ketchikan this season
The herring spawn in these areas ended by April 6, except in Ernest Sound north of Meyers Chuck, where the spawning event began on April 13 and continued through Tuesday.
State surveys observed about 15.3 miles of spawn in the Craig area, 2.2 miles in West Behm Canal, and about 10.7 miles in Revillagigedo Channel, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.
The Craig/Klawock commercial herring spawn-on-kelp fishery appears to have been a success. A total of 76 pound structures were involved the fishery, according to the department.
The Ernest Sound commercial herring spawn-on-kelp harvest continued into this week. Thirty pounds and 83 permit holders were involved in the fishery, according to Fish and Game.
The Metlakatla Indian Community conducted a herring sac roe fishery on the east side of the Annette Island Reserve, where about 10 miles of the 10.7 miles of spawning activity observed in Revillagigedo Channel occurred, according to Fish and Game. The other approximately 0.7 miles of spawn was observed in state-managed waters along the southeast shore of Mary Island.
No state commercial herring fisheries occurred in Revillagigedo Channel or West Behm Canal this year, as neither area in 2012 reached the threshold levels of herring spawn required to consider opening fisheries.
The Craig-area spawn “did very well,” said Scott Walker, the Ketchikan-area commercial fishery management biologist with Fish and Game. “It was a very, very intense and a very good spawn from what I can tell.”
The observed 15.3 miles of spawn is in the normal range for Craig, he said.
The department conducts dive spawn-deposition surveys in the Craig area to more accurately gauge the volume of spawn there.
“It isn’t always miles of spawn,” Walker said, “because any given mile of spawn can have really dense spawn, or you could have very weak spawn.”
Fish and Game aerial surveys of the Revillagigedo Channel area south of Ketchikan observed about 10 miles of spawn occurring on the east side of Annette Island, beginning on March 31 and ending on April 4.
“Annette Island had a pretty good spawn this year; it went for several days,” Walker said.
The approximately 0.7 miles of spawn observed at Mary Island is down from about 3.5 miles there in 2012.
No herring activity was observed at the mainland Kah Shakes area on the east side of Revillagigedo Channel, once the site of substantial commercial herring sac roe fisheries. No fisheries have occurred at Kah Shakes since 1996.
Controversy continues about what happened at Kah Shakes — whether a Kah Shakes-specific herring stock was overfished or a Kah Shakes segment of a larger Revillagigedo Channel stock moved west toward Annette Island.
In recent years, though, the overall Revillagigedo Channel herring situation has been stable, according to Walker.
“The majority of that stock has been spawning in Annette Island waters, and they've had fairly successful fisheries,” Walker said.
West Behm Canal, which includes the north end of Gravina Island, appears to be on the low side of a cyclic trend, with about 2.2 miles of spawn observed this year, the least since 1989.
West Behm Canal averaged about 2 miles of observed spawn between the 1970s and early 1990s before exhibiting a marked increase during the 1990s.
The largest observed spawn was about 27 miles in 1998, followed by a three-year decline.
“Then we built back up to 2009 when we were up quite a bit more, and since 2009, it's been dropping again,” Walker said.
This year’s herring spawn event at West Behm Canal occurred in the Vallenar Bay area.
The department conducts spawn-deposition surveys of West Behm Canal, Walker said.
It doesn’t appear that enough spawning occurred there this season for the department to consider opening a commercial fishery there in 2014.
“It would be virtually impossible to reach threshold with that amount of spawn,”said Walker.