Fire sale salmon prices last year and a dim outlook for the upcoming season have caused the value of Alaska fishing permits to plummet.<\/p>\n
To another extreme \u2014 the prices for halibut catch shares have soared to \u201cunheard of levels.\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting with salmon permits: \u201cA lot of people had disastrous seasons last year, whether it was drift gillnet or seine permits, and the values have declined dramatically,\u201d said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer.<\/p>\n
At Alaska\u2019s bellwether fishery at Bristol Bay, a base sockeye prices of 50 cents a pound helped push drift gillnet permit prices into the $98,000 range, down from $175,000 last spring.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat may be the bottom; they seem to have come up a bit,\u201d Bowen said, \u201cbut it\u2019s still way below what they were trading for at this time last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lower prices have spawned little interest in Bay drift permits; likewise, for salmon seine cards across the state.<\/p>\n
Seine permits at Prince William Sound are priced in the $150,000 range, down from over $200,000 a year ago. Kodiak seine permits have sunk into the mid $30s, and a Cook Inlet drift permit is valued in the $60,000 range.<\/p>\n
Bowen doesn\u2019t expect the tide to turn anytime soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m afraid a lot of the same factors that contributed to the low prices we saw last year are pretty much the same this year. It\u2019s not an optimistic outlook for salmon, and that is depressing the market for permits, and also the boats,\u201d he added. \u201cThere are lots on the market, lots of sellers, not that many buyers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not a lot of extra money floating around in the salmon industry. So folks wanting to upgrade their vessels or pick up permits in another area, we\u2019re just not seeing that happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
The situation is slightly better in Southeast Alaska, where driftnet permits are getting a plug of interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than I thought compared to all the other salmon areas,\u201d said Olivia Olsen of Alaskan Quota and Permits at Petersburg.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe started at $78,000 in November and drifts now are going for $85,000 and they may creep up from there. Same with power troll permits. They\u2019ve been pretty steady sales at about $35,000 which is down about $6,000 from last year, but still a pretty good price when you listen to all the talk about bad salmon prices. Hand troll permits also are on the upswing to $12,000,\u201d Olsen said.<\/p>\n
Both brokers said salmon permit prices tend to tick upwards the closer it gets to salmon season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the main issue is what we are going to see for prices, Bowen and Olsen said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Halibut share shocker<\/strong><\/p>\n This year\u2019s small increase in halibut catches combined with hopes of a repeat of $6-$7 per pound prices was enough to send quota share prices skyrocketing.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a big rush after the halibut numbers were announced in late January,\u201d said Olivia Olsen at Alaskan Quota and Permits in Petersburg.<\/p>\n For the first time in nearly two decades, the coast-wide halibut catch was increased by 2.3 percent to nearly 30 million pounds. Alaska\u2019s share of 21.45 million pounds is up 200,000 pounds from 2015.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say quota prices shot up $10 a pound since December,\u201d Olsen said of Southeast shares. \u201cWe have current sales pending at $63 and $65 per pound, with rumors of going higher. Those prices are just unheard of, and to jump up that high in that short period of time – oh, my golly!\u201d<\/p>\n Are people buying at those nosebleed prices?<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of people drawing the line, but there are a few who have bought. They\u2019ve been waiting a long time for it and are just going to bite the bullet,\u201d Olsen said.<\/p>\n The same holds true for quota prices in the Central Gulf, Alaska\u2019s largest halibut fishing hole.<\/p>\n \u201cThose are bumping up to $60,\u201d said Doug Bowen of Alaska Boats and Permits in Homer. \u201cWe\u2019ve had offers of $59 but no takers. Quota shares for the Western Gulf have increased by around $5 and are in the $40s if you can find it. There is strong interest there and also in Bering Sea regions. But it\u2019s the same scenario \u2013 more buyers than sellers and the market is really tight.\u201d<\/p>\n Olsen added: \u201cIt will be interesting to see if these prices will last.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Got ice?<\/strong><\/p>\n A grass roots push is underway in Kodiak for a self-pay ice house and crane at Oscars Dock at its downtown harbor.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s common in fishing communities throughout Alaska and the nation,\u201d said Theresa Peterson, a fisherman and outreach director for the Alaska Marine Conservation Council. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of strange that Kodiak doesn\u2019t have this facility, being that we are the number 2 port in the nation, and home to the largest and most diversified fleet in Alaska.\u201d<\/p>\n The need and benefits go far beyond commercial fishing, Peterson stressed. It would serve Kodiak\u2019s five outlying villages, whose residents travel by boat to town and load\/offload provisions, sport charter operators, recreational anglers and hunters.<\/p>\n Fisherman Darius Kasprzak, who calls Kodiak\u2019s lack of a public ice house \u201cflabbergasting,\u201d is worried that a lack of it will drive the island\u2019s fleet of small salmon boats out of business.<\/p>\n \u201cMore processors are requiring RSW (refrigerated sea water) systems and are phasing out all the ice boats. Only a few processors are still accepting fish iced in holds, and most of those are grandfathered in,\u201d Kasprzak said. \u201cSo all these little boats that don\u2019t have room for RSW or don\u2019t have the money are walking on pins and needles. But if there\u2019s public ice that will change things dramatically.\u201d<\/p>\n Boat owners with RSW also would like to be able to grab ice so they could shut down the systems at night \u201cand not have to listen to it,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s worth it to buy some ice and chill off the top of the fish and not have to buy fuel and put wear and tear on the RSW,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Kasprzak said there is another reason ice is even more important for a water faring community.<\/p>\n \u201cOur waters are warming. Right now temperatures are at 7 degrees over normal. Last summer the water at Prince William Sound reached 60 degrees. Our RSW systems aren\u2019t built to handle those temperatures. The Kodiak processors didn\u2019t have enough ice for boats last salmon season because it was so hot. There\u2019s more of a need now for a community ice house than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n The Kodiak City Council will hear the issue on March 15th.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Weigh in on water<\/strong><\/p>\n The Alaska Dept. of Natural Resources is considering revising its water management practices and wants input from the public. It includes regulations on water rights in streams, lakes, wells and other bodies.<\/p>\n A DNR announcement said: \u201cThe department is soliciting feedback and comments from the public on how they would change or improve the existing regulatory framework related to water management or for suggestions and proposals which would improve the regulations related to water management before the formal process of drafting any proposed changes begins.\u201d<\/p>\n Comments are accepted through March 18. Send via email to dnr.water.regulation@alaska.gov.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fire sale salmon prices last year and a dim outlook for the upcoming season have caused the value of Alaska fishing permits to plummet. To another extreme \u2014 the prices for halibut catch shares have soared to \u201cunheard of levels.\u201d Starting with salmon permits: \u201cA lot of people had disastrous seasons last year, whether it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[149],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-11294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-outdoors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11294"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}