Halibut landings across the state have slowed down as boats turn their attention to salmon. Homer landed 109,763 pounds of halibut on fifteen deliveries in the last week, over twice as much as Kodiak. Seward recorded 37,573 pounds. Almost eight and a half million pounds have been caught so far around the state in the IFQ longline fishery.
Sablefish landings were lower as well. Seward’s 92,170 pounds led the week, followed by a 42,495 pound week for Homer. Sitka, Kodiak, and King Cove saw the other significant sablefish deliveries. Just over 14.5 million pounds of this year’s total allowable catch remain.
The Upper Cook Inlet commercial salmon fishery took sixty-seven thousand fish in the last week’s openers, with sixty-two thousand of them sockeye. Most of that came from east side set gillnetters, with the drift fleet accounting for 11,464 fish.
In Lower Cook Inlet, which includes Kachemak Bay, fishermen caught just under seventeen thousand salmon. About half of that total came from the Kamishak Bay seine fishery across the Inlet. Most of the rest came from the various Kachemak Bay districts, with about two-thirds from the purse seine fleet.
Gulf of Alaska trawlers caught 1,701 metric tons of various groundfish last week, or three million seven hundred fifty thousand pounds. Pacific Ocean Perch and arrowtooth flounder made up by far the largest share.