I wish I was in Naknek today.

That’s because the locals out there are putting on the Bristol Bay Fish Conference 2009, an all-day affair at the borough high school.

The agenda features talks on icing more of the bay’s salmon catch, and plans for a port expansion and adjacent industrial park.

But the main topic is the issue of processor capacity in the bay, home of the world’s biggest and wildest sockeye run.

Commercial fishermen, as you might recall, were upset that processing plants couldn’t handle all the fish last season, forcing boats and nets to sit idle as millions of sockeye swam up the rivers unharvested.

Here's more from the U.S. Coast Guard on the bomb threat in Ketchikan:

U.S. Coast Guard, 17th District

Jan. 7, 2009

UPDATE – Threat against Ketchikan fuel facility deemed non-credible

JUNEAU, Alaska – Local, state and federal law enforcement agencies have determined this morning's threat against the Petro Marine fuel facility in Ketchikan, Alaska, to be non-credible.

Sad news just in from the U.S. Coast Guard:

U.S. Coast Guard, 17th District

Jan. 7, 2009

Coast Guard suspends search for crab fisherman who fell into the Bering Sea

JUNEAU, Alaska – The Coast Guard suspended its search Wednesday at 11:49 a.m. for Keith Criner, 43, resident of Stockton, Calif., after he became tangled in a crab pot line and fell from the 98-foot fishing vessel Seabrooke approximately 22 miles northwest of Cold Bay, Alaska, at 9:50 a.m. Tuesday.

Sounds like somebody’s either mad or just up to mischief down in Ketchikan.

Here’s the skinny from the U.S. Coast Guard:

U.S. Coast Guard, 17th District

Jan. 7, 2009

Coast Guard responds to threat against Ketchikan fuel facility

KETCHIKAN, Alaska – The 17th Coast Guard District Command Center located in Juneau, Alaska, received an anonymous phone call this morning in which the caller threatened to detonate fuel tanks at the Petro Marine fuel facility in Ketchikan.

The Seabrooke at Unalaska last month. Jim Paulin photo

Just got off the line with the U.S. Coast Guard command center down in Juneau.

An officer there advises the search for the crewman who fell off the Bering Sea crab boat Seabrooke has been suspended for the night. No sign of the guy, unfortunately. Searching will resume in the morning.

The crewman’s name hasn’t yet been released.

My good friend Jim Paulin provided a photograph of the Seabrooke. He took the shot around Dec. 12 at Unalaska. Thanks for the picture, Jim.

This just in from the U.S. Coast Guard:

U.S. Coast Guard, 17th District

Jan. 6, 2009

Coast Guard searches for opilio crab fisherman who fell into the Bering Sea

JUNEAU, Alaska – The Coast Guard is responding to a report of a 40-year-old male who tangled his feet in a crab pot line and fell from the 90-foot fishing vessel Seabrooke approximately 22 miles northwest of Cold Bay, Alaska, at 9:50 a.m.

Ted and Lisa: Can she lead on fish? Erik Hill photo

What will this new year bring in Alaska fisheries?

Once again, The Highliner takes an ill-advised stab at predicting the future. But hey, my track record has been pretty good. Check last year’s forecast to see how I did.

Anyway, here are my 10 predictions for 2009.

• U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, will step up on fisheries issues now that fish wizard Ted Stevens is out of Oz, errr, Washington. Nationally, however, East Coast members of Congress will drive the boat on fisheries and oceans lawmaking.

Picture of the Year: A July 21 fire ravages the Trident Seafoods Corp. salmon cannery at Chignik. No word yet on whether the plant will be rebuilt. U.S. Coast Guard photo

In what I’m sure has already become a highly anticipated event, The Highliner offers this second annual recap of the most important or interesting news from the past year.

• The factory trawler Alaska Ranger sank on Easter Sunday in the Bering Sea, killing five. The U.S. Coast Guard and a sister fishing boat saved 42 others in an amazing rescue effort.

Hope everybody is having a fine holiday season.

Remember the Cook Inlet Salmon Task Force?

It’s the 10-member panel of legislators formed last spring to look into ways to boost salmon returns to the Inlet’s northern reaches, and to settle the endless feuding between commercial, sport, subsistence and dipnet fishermen.

The task force was supposed to have a report ready for the next legislative session beginning Jan. 20.

But we might have to wait a while longer for the panel’s findings.

The last time the National Marine Fisheries Service tried to impose a one-fish daily bag limit on halibut charter boat anglers in Southeast Alaska (Area 2C), a federal court in Washington, D.C., struck it down. That was in June.

Now NMFS is trying again with a new set of proposed regulations to impose the limit.

Halibut abundance has dropped drastically in Southeast, and commercial fishermen want to see the growing charter catch restrained.

Charter boat captains counter that commercial longliners catch most of the halibut, and that charter clients just won’t pay to catch and keep only one fish a day.

Arctic Storm has beaten out American Seafoods for a lucrative piece of the Bering Sea pollock fishery. This is Arctic's flagship, the factory trawler Arctic Storm, at the pier in Seattle last month. Wesley Loy photo

Part of the growth strategy for American Seafoods, owner of the largest fleet of Bering Sea pollock factory fishing ships, has been to lease rights to catch Community Development Quota.

The quota belongs to six Alaska companies that hold a 10 percent share of available Bering Sea pollock, as well as other kinds of fish and crab, for the benefit of Western Alaska villages.

Here’s the full motion the North Pacific Fishery Management Council passed to possibly overhaul the crab rationalization program (The Highliner, Dec. 15).

Fair warning – this a tedious read.

This just in from the state Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission:

PRESS RELEASE

Dec. 19, 2008

The Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission (CFEC) has created a new online permit and vessel license renewal service now available to Alaska’s fishing community. Permit holders can renew permit and vessel licenses for the 2009 fishing season at CFEC’s Web site.

The Washington Post is reporting today that President-elect Barack Obama has selected an Oregon State University professor to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist at Oregon State, will head an agency that includes the National Marine Fisheries Service, which regulates commercial fisheries in ocean waters.

An Alaskan, Jim Balsiger of Juneau, currently heads NMFS.

No word yet, so far as I know, on whether Balsiger will keep his job or be replaced under the new administration.

So, can anybody tell us the name of the “large fishing vessel” referred to in this state press release?

Alaska Department of Fish and Game

Dec. 17, 2008

FISHING VESSEL SEARCHED FOR RATS

SEWARD – Apparently for the first time since statehood, an Alaska State Trooper has boarded a fishing vessel in Seward specifically to search for illegal rats.

Acting on a tip alleging a rat infestation, the trooper last week searched a large fishing vessel that recently arrived from Dutch Harbor. While rats have infested Dutch Harbor at least since World War II, Seward and many other Alaska communities so far have escaped invasion, and wildlife managers and lawmakers want to keep it that way.

Greenpeace isn’t happy with the North Pacific Fishery Management Council’s recommendation on next year’s Bering Sea pollock catch limit and has submitted this letter to federal regulators who have the final say:

Dec. 16, 2008

James Balsiger
Acting Assistant Administrator for Fisheries
NOAA Fisheries Service
1315 East West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910

Dear Mr. Balsiger:

On Dec. 13, 2008, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council proposed a Total Allowable Catch for eastern Bering Sea pollock of 815,000 tons. This equaled the maximum Allowable Biological Catch recommended by the Groundfish Plan Team, and greatly exceeded the 458,000 ton recommendation made by a minority of Plan Team and Advisory Panel members.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council sank most of its energy today into the thorny subject of crab rationalization.

Crab ratz, you’ll recall, is the new management style that swept over the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands king and Tanner crab fisheries three years ago. That’s when the harvests switched from dangerous derbies to individual shares for fishermen and processors.

Like most revolutions, this one was contentious, and the resistance remains strong.

The council today took some modest steps toward fixing what some see as big flaws in crab ratz.

• The council voted to study the idea of increasing the level of fishing shares for crewmen on crab boats.

Alaska fish writers, myself included, tend to focus too much on the enormous Bering Sea pollock fishery and not enough on the big-dollar harvests of other groundfish species such as Pacific cod and sablefish.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council on Saturday recommended a sharply reduced catch limit for Bering Sea pollock next year (The Highliner, Dec. 13).

The rest of the council’s recommendations are a mixed bag.

In the Bering, we see some increases from this past season.

But in the Gulf of Alaska, the news is all negative for fishermen.

Here are a few key catch limits for 2009. For a full rundown of all species, click here.

Here's the story I wrote for tomorrow's newspaper:

By WESLEY LOY
Anchorage Daily News

Federal fishery regulators meeting in Anchorage on Saturday recommended a deep cut in next year’s catch of Bering Sea pollock, the whitefish widely used for such goods as fish sticks, fast-food fish sandwiches and imitation crab.

The action was expected and had the broad support of government scientists who study the fish and believe the stock is healthy but trending down.

Activists with environmental groups Oceana and Greenpeace, however, called for a much deeper cutback in next year’s catch, arguing the commercial fleet is fishing too hard on a stock important not only as human food but as nourishment for sea lions and other Bering Sea creatures.

As expected, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council today recommended a Bering Sea pollock catch limit for next year of 815,000 metric tons, an 18.5 percent reduction from this year's level.

The action is subject to final approval by the U.S. commerce secretary.

I'll have more details tonight.