Source: Anna Laffrey. “Board of Fisheries Chinook Negotiations Begin.” Ketchikan Daily News, February, 5, 2025.

Southeast Alaska fishermen filled the Ted Ferry Civic Center in Ketchikan on Tuesday to ask the seven-member Alaska Board of Fisheries to grant them opportunities in state-managed fisheries for all “finfish” species, namely chinook salmon and herring, that sustain communities, industries and cultural traditions regionwide.

The Board on Tuesday heard more than seven hours of public testimony regarding fisheries for salmon and trout species, as well as herring, that are the subject of 87 proposals before the Board in Session Two of its 13-day regulatory meeting.

Eighty-four stakeholders — including commercial fishermen, seafood processors, sport fishing guides and Lodge owners, Fishery organization leaders, government representatives and harvesters — spoke on Tuesday as the finfish session got underway.

McKinley Kellogg, whose family operates Chinook Shores Lodge in Ketchikan, spoke on Monday about the importance of the guided nonresident sport fishing and Lodge industry in Southeast.

Kellogg said that the industry provides “stable job opportunities for young people,” including many “local kids” who can gain “customer services, sales and networking” experiences and “log sea time to become charter captains themselves some day.”

“The growing industry is a good things,” Kellogg said Monday.

On Monday and Tuesday, many sport industry representatives who fish out of Sitka, Craig, Klawock or other outer coast communities asked the Board to maintain three-fish annual limits for nonresidents harvesting Chinook in the early season, when most inside Southeast waters are closed to Chinook harvest due to “stocks of concern.”

Sarah Farber, a guide for Anglikng Unlimited out of Sitka, said the Chinook harvest opportunities are key “to drawing charter customers for the first half of our season.”