Kodiak Setnet Fleet Saves Season by Linking Up With Silver Bay Seafoods

Veteran salmon setnetters in Kodiak, Alaska’s Alitak District have struck a deal with Silver Bay Seafoods after long-time buyer OBI dropped the Alitak setnet fleet from its roster, citing economic concerns.

OBI’s decision to drop the setnetters had left them with no established means for gearing up remote fishing camps, fueling boats and selling their catch, wrote veteran harvester Hannah Heimbuch, who is a fisheries policy and communications consultant with Ocean Strategies, a public affairs firm specializing in seafood fisheries and marine resources.

“After a spring of chaos, the fish ultimately pulled us through in Alitak this year,” Heimbuch wrote in Ocean Strategies’ latest fisheries policy report, released Oct. 1.

“While salmon runs statewide were inconsistent in both returning numbers and fish size, 2024’s returning cohort ultimately pulled through for Kodiak’s Alitak District in a short-order Hail Mary’,” Heimbuch wrote.

All this when the early run never did materialize, the consequence of a drought that hit the island in 2020 and likely wiped out most of that season’s eggs, she said.

“But one day in August, the late-run sockeye poured into the bay and didn’t stop. Day after day we drove to the net, and gradually replenished our hope, our fish holds, and our freezers. The loan payments got made, another race in the books,” Heimbuch said.

A lesson learned, she said, is what happens tomorrow will depend on what is prioritized.

“For better or worse these shake-ups are trending, across Alaska and in other regions of the country, pushing coastal communities and fishermen to reconsider what resilience and prosperity look like today, and for the years to come,” she said.

“Ecological well-being and biodiversity are fundamental to that resilience, and so are myriad factors of tangible and intangible community infrastructure — port facilities, workforce, market competition, etc. Fishing operations function like a watch, it takes a series of gears working together effectively to make the hands turn. If one of those gears falters, so do the others,” she said.

It was waterfront diversity that got setnetters through the good, bad and the ugly, Heimbuch added, saying that resilience isn’t about preventing change or even preventing crisis.

“Crisis gives us an opportunity to reflect on what keeps our working waterfronts working, and our communities strong,” she stated.

They pivoted to supplemental markets, like selling pink salmon to crabbers who needed fresh bait. These shifts took work and wrangling but they helped ends meet from beach to beach.

Heimbuch said she still sees the oceans as abundant, productive, incredible resources, like the fishing communities that rely on them.

“Our job, as we learn to navigate changes in our ecosystems and our communities, is to be a good neighbor to each other, and most importantly, to the fish,” she said.

Source: https://fishermensnews.com/kodiak-setnet-fleet-saves-season-by-linking-up-with-silver-bay-seafoods/