Photos & Terms

A commercial fishing announcement is a bulletin issued by the State of Alaska Department of Fish & Game that changes (usually opens or closes) a fishing opportunity. Among fishermen this is usually called “an announcement” (sometimes called “an opener’) although technically it is an “emergency order”. Here’s the state of Alaska page for Releases of Announcements. Below is a screenshot of an example, from 2017 and further down you can download the actual PDF.

Alaska Statue 16.10.455 describes cost recovery for fisheries. The common explanation is that hatcheries and the organizations that run them have costs and wish to make money to pay for those costs. A fishing area may be designated specifically for cost recovery purpose. The practice, in Lower Cook Inlet, is for the aquaculture association to contract with a fish processor to harvest fish designated as ‘cost recovery’. The processor then hires a few boats to do the work of catching those fish, for a fraction of their market value. In the local industry, this is called “cost recovery fishing”. No one else can fish commercially in an area designated as/for ‘cost recovery’ and although any permit holder should be allowed to fish for cost recovery, that’s not the practice at this time.

While cost recovery fishing (in some areas) pays a fraction of the value of commercial (common property) fishing, it’s better than no fishing at all, which is what everyone not hired to fish under cost recovery is subjected to.

The issues are complicated and involve the state, hatcheries, aquaculture associations, sport and commercial fishermen (of multiple gear types) and the charter-fishing industry. The impacts are upon the natural fish, the ecology and the balance of resources. From other fish to birds to humans, interfering with the salmon cycle has far-reaching consequences.

“Common property” is used in commercial fishing to describe fish that are available, legally, to fish.