halibut

Alaska: Good Prices for Halibut and Sablefish Harvesters

Written by

US – The basic laws of supply and demand are resulting in a nice pay day for Alaska halibut and sablefish harvesters. Prices for both fish are up by more than a dollar a pound compared to the same time last year.

Fresh halibut has been moving smoothly and demand is steady since the fishery opened in early March, said a major Kodiak buyer, where dock prices were reported at $6 a pound for ten to 20 pounders, $6.25 for halibut weighing 20 to 40 pounds, and $6.50 for “40 ups.”

At Homer and in Southeast Alaska, halibut prices have yet to drop below six bucks a pound, said local processors. Dock prices at Homer last week ranged from $6.50 to $7.00 per pound “for very small loads.”

At Southeast, after reaching a high of $6.75 at Easter, halibut prices were $6.60/$6.40 /$6.10 per pound. Processors are reporting “strong halibut catches and lots of nice fish”. The fresh fish is being flown out almost daily from Southeast and distributed in small lots to markets all over the US. Alaska’s total halibut catch this year is close to 16 million pounds.

For sablefish, commonly called black cod, longliners are benefitting from “bare cupboards” and strong demand by buyers in Japan, where the bulk of Alaska’s catch goes. Last year, holdovers in freezers pushed prices down 40% to the $5 to $3 per pound range, depending on fish size.

Black cod is usually priced in five weights, ranging from under three pounds to over seven pounds. At Kodiak the breakout was $6.75 – $5.75 – $5.00 -$4.50 and $4.00. Sablefish prices at Homer were running between $4 and $7 a pound. Southeast processors reported prices at $5.30 to $7 a pound at the docks. Alaska’s sablefish catch this year is about 24 million pounds. Most deliveries are going to Seward, followed by Kodiak and Homer.

www.thefishsite.com

Alaska’s Halibut and Black Cod Harvest Season Opens Saturday

Written by

Alaska’s wild halibut and black cod (sablefish) harvest season opens Saturday, March 8, 2014 at 12:00 PM local time. Statewide Total Allowable Catch (TAC) limits for Alaska halibut and black cod are set at 16.8 million pounds and 33.6 million pounds respectively. Alaska is home to over 95% of the Pacific halibut and over 70% of the black cod harvested in the United States. Like all species of Alaska seafood, Alaska halibut and black cod are wild and sustainable, as mandated by the Alaska Constitution. Alaska’s science-based fishery management practices are considered a world model.

The International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC) is responsible for setting the annual halibut harvest limit based on stock assessments and halibut biology, and the North Pacific Fishery Management Council (NPFMC) makes allocative decisions based on that quota. The Alaska black cod fisheries are both federally and state managed, with the NPFMC reviewing the annual stock assessment and harvest limits for fisheries in federal waters and the State of Alaska managing the fisheries in state waters.

The largest of all flatfish, Alaska halibut is prized for its mild, sweet flavor, firm texture, and spectacular results whether grilled, roasted, sautéed, or poached. Alaska black cod offers a beautiful snow-white fillet, perfect flake, and succulent velvety texture. Along with being excellent roasted, sautéed, and poached, Alaska black cod is ideal for smoking.

www.alaskaseafood.org

US (AK): Proposed 2014 Halibut Catch Down 21 per cent

Written by

The recommendations for next year’s halibut catches are down again for all regions in the USA except Southeast Alaska.

Fishery scientists with the International Pacific Halibut Commission have recommended a 2014 coast wide commercial catch total of 24.45 million pounds, a 21% decrease from the 31 million pounds allowed for this year. That includes catches in Alaska, British Columbia and the Pacific Coast states.

In a summation at a meeting in Seattle last week, the IPHC said: “The results of the 2013 stock assessment indicate that the Pacific halibut stock has been declining continuously over much of the last decade as a result of decreasing size-at-age, as well as recruitment strengths that are much smaller than those observed through the 1980s and 1990s.”

Here are the proposed catch limits for Alaska regions in millions of pounds, compared to the totals from 2013 in parentheses: Southeast Alaska (2C) – 4.16 (2.97); Central Gulf (3A) – 9.43 (11.03); Western Gulf (3B) – 2.84 (4.29); Alaska Peninsula (4A) – 0.85 (1.33); Aleutian Islands region (4B) – 0.82 (1.45); Bering Sea (4CDE) 0.64 (1.94).

Final decisions on the catch limits, season start date and regulation changes will be made by the IPHC at its annual meeting, Jan. 13-17 in Seattle. While the Pacific halibut catches have been declining for decade, the value of the fishery has been on a downward trend for the past four years.

Near the end of each year bills are sent out to Alaska longliners who hold shares of the halibut and sablefish (black cod) catches. They are required to pay an annual fee to the federal government to cover the costs for managing and enforcing those fisheries. The fee, which is capped at three percent, is based on dock prices and averaged across the state.

The billings were mailed out in late November to 2,024 fishermen, 90 fewer than last year, according to Troie Zuniga, fee coordinator for NOAA Fisheries in Juneau.

This year the combined halibut and sablefish fisheries paid a fee of 2.8%, which yielded $5 million for coverage costs.

For halibut, the overall dockside value of the 2013 fishery was $105 million, and about $72 million for black cod.

“That’s about $32 million lower than the 2012 value for halibut and $37 million lower for black cod,” Zuniga said, adding that it reflects a fishery value decline of nearly 28 percent over four years.

In terms of fish prices, the average for halibut this year was $5.06 per pound compared to $5.87 last year; for sablefish, an average price of $2.84 per pound is a drop from $4.11 in 2013.

www.thefishsite.com