Herring Fisheries in Alaska

Species and Gear Types

Pacific Herring

• ADF&GWildlife Notebook Series
• AK Habitat Management Guide - PDF file* (1,006K)

Commercial Herring Boat Types

Purse seines and gillnets are the primary gears used to catch whole herring. Purse seine gear is used almost exclusively in herring food/bait fisheries, while both purse seines and gillnets are used in sac roe fisheries. Trawl gear is no longer legal for fishing herring in Alaska with three exceptions. Trawl gear is legal, but very rarely used, for fishing food/bait herring in Prince William Sound. The type of trawl used in Prince William Sound has been a pair trawl, similar to a purse seine net, towed between two purse seine vessels. At Kodiak, trawl gear has typically been used to catch a small amount of herring for food/bait.

Almost all herring sac roe purse seine fishermen and many gillnetters employ spotter aircraft to locate schools of herring and direct their fishing efforts. Spotter aircraft are able to locate schools of herring very quickly, so that herring fisheries have become extremely efficient. With spotter aircraft support, entire allowable harvests of thousands of tons of herring have been captured in fishery openings as short as 15 minutes.

In Gulf of Alaska areas, herring bait fisheries usually occur during the fall and winter, using purse seine gear. When used for bait on hook and line gear, fall- and winter-caught herring are retained longer on the hooks than those caught in spring and summer. Herring fat content is high during the summer, and summer-caught herring do not preserve as well. However, high oil content is desirable for some methods of preserving herring for food. Production of herring food products has been minimal in recent years.

In addition to fisheries for whole herring, a number of “spawn-on-kelp” fisheries harvest herring eggs after they are deposited on kelp fronds. Pound spawn-on-kelp fisheries harvest kelp fronds deliberately placed in the water to collect herring spawn. Wild spawn-on-kelp fisheries harvest naturally-occurring kelp fronds on which herring have spawned. A “closed-pound” fishery involves releasing captured sexually mature herring into a net impoundment in which kelp is suspended. The herring are released from the pound after they spawn on the kelp, and the suspended kelp with eggs is then harvested and sold. An “open-pound” fishery involves suspending kelp from a floating frame structure in an area where naturally-occurring herring are expected to spawn.

Herring pound spawn-on-kelp fisheries are allowed by regulation at Craig-Klawock, Ernest Sound, Tenakee Inlet, and Hoonah Sound in Southeast Alaska, in Prince William Sound, and in Norton Sound. Naturally occurring herring spawn on kelp (sometimes called “wild” spawn on kelp) is also allowed by regulation to be harvested by SCUBA divers in Prince William Sound and to be hand picked at low tide in the intertidal zone in the Togiak district of Bristol Bay.

[Based on excerpts from the publication, Commercial Fisheries in Alaska, Woodby et al. Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Special Publication 05-09, June 2005 (PDF - 1,059K). Information or data on this web page may have been updated and may no longer match the original publication.]

Additional Links:

• Catch, Effort, and Value
• Forms
• Laboratory Services
• Map of Fisheries
• Regulations
• Species Description
• Fishery Openings, Updates & Forecasts

For additional information regarding Alaska's herring fisheries please contact dfg.dcf.webmaster@alaska.gov.

Regional Herring Fisheries:

• Southeast Alaska/Yakutat
• Bristol Bay-Prince William Sound-Cook Inlet
• Yukon-Kuskokwim-Norton Sound
• Kodiak-AK Peninsula

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