Today's Catch: Getting the Message

While addressing communications and navigational electronics in this issue of Fishermen’s News, we noted that one of the most important uses of communications equipment in the fishing industry is for safety – calling a medical team to diagnose an injury or illness, contacting a fellow fisherman for weather information or the ultimate safety call: sending a mayday to the US Coast Guard.

No matter how advanced your equipment, if there’s no one to answer the call at the other end, you’re in trouble. Fortunately, the US Coast Guard is always ready (semper paratus) to respond to life threatening situations.

Late on the night of June 29th, Coast Guard Sector Columbia River received a distress call from the crew of the 52-foot fishing vessel Quest saying the boat was quickly taking on water. The crew couldn’t dewater the vessel fast enough to keep it afloat and were told to don survival gear and abandon the boat while a 47-foot motor lifeboat crew from Station Grays Harbor in Westport and an MH-60 helicopter crew from Air Station Astoria were sent to assist.

The helicopter crew arrived on scene at midnight to find three people in a liferaft and one in the water. A rescue swimmer was deployed to assist the crewmember in the water and then all four were hoisted into the helicopter and transported to Bowerman Airfield in Hoquiam, Washington, to be examined by emergency medical personnel. There were no reported injuries.

The 47-foot motor lifeboat crew arrived to locate the vessel, assess the risk of pollution and collect the vessel’s EPIRB from the water. The Quest sank with an estimated 250 gallons of diesel fuel on board, but there were no signs of pollution.

A few days later, on the morning of July 3rd, the Coast Guard received an EPIRB notification with no indication of location. The EPIRB was registered to the fishing vessel Sound Leader, homeported in Newport, Oregon. After repeatedly attempting to contact the vessel over the radio, the Coast Guard received additional information from the vessel’s EPIRB indicating its position approximately three miles west of Newport.

Coast Guard Group North Bend, Oregon, launched a 47-foot motor lifeboat crew from Station Yaquina Bay in Newport and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Air Station North Bend. Both crews arrived at the last position indicated by the EPIRB, located a debris field and spotted three people in the water.

The Dolphin crew hoisted two of the survivors to the helicopter and transported them to Air Facility Newport where they were placed in the care of local EMS. The 47-foot motor lifeboat crew recovered a third survivor from the water who was transported to Station Yaquina Bay and placed in the care of local EMS.

A 47-foot motor lifeboat crew, a 25-foot response boat crew from Station Yaquina Bay and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from Air Facility Newport remained on scene to search for a fourth crewmember, who was never found.

In both rescues, the radio and EPIRB were key pieces of equipment, but without the Coast Guard’s response the outcome would have been much different. Many of you reading this today may have been rescued by the US Coast Guard at some point in your career, and many more of you might be in the future. They’ll show up if you call them. But it probably wouldn’t hurt to bring your local Coasties a plate of cookies or a fresh salmon for the barbecue once in a while, to say thanks.

Chris Philips
editor@fishermensnews.com

Humpies Boost Wild Salmon Harvest to Nearly 90 Million Fish

Alaska’s wild salmon harvest for the 2012 season stood at 89.9 million fish by Aug. 10, a leap of nearly 40 million fish since July 27.

The harvest of humpies alone rose from13 million on July 27 to 22.4 million by Aug. 3 and up to 39 million on Aug. 10, according to preliminary harvest reports from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Harvest totals compiled by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game through Aug. 10 showed a total of 34,686,000 sockeyes, 39,008,000 pink, 14,866,000 chum, 1,152,000 coho and 210,000 Chinook salmon delivered to processors. The biggest jump came in pink salmon harvests in Southeast Alaska, where the catch of pinks rose from 1.2 million to 9 million fish between July 27 and Aug. 10.

In Prince William Sound, the humpy harvest rose in one week from 12.2 million to 18 million pinks, while for the same period at Kodiak, the humpy harvest jumped from 5.5 million fish to 10 million pinks.

The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute noted in its June market bulletin that a survey of fishery conditions and available forecasts suggested that the 2012 wild salmon production might decline by 30 percent, or 690 million pounds, with reduced supplies in Russia and Alaska.

The largest decline, however, was forecast to come from Russia. Russian pink salmon harvests, like those in Alaska, have recently followed a two-year up/down cycle, ASMI’s report noted. Pink salmon harvests are generally much lower in even years as opposed to odd years in both countries.

In Southeast Alaska’s troll fishery, the regional power troll coho catch rates for the week ended Aug. 10 were 77 fish a day. The average price was $1.40 a pound for the silvers. The seasonal average coho weight of 5 pounds is still relatively small, but for the week ending Aug. 10, the average weight of cohos increased to 5.6 pounds, and the cumulative coho catch in the troll fishery since July 1 stood at just over 484,500 fish.

In the Southeast purse seine fishery, the cumulative purse seine harvest was 7.9 million pink and 4.6 million chum salmon, with landings reported by 229 boats. The second in-season pink salmon forecast for the Southeast purse seine fishery, based on data through week 31, projected a harvest of 25 million fish, somewhat higher than the pre-season forecast of 17 million, state biologists said.

EPA Hopes to Have Final Pebble Report Out by Year’s End

An independent team of scientists in Anchorage has completed its critique of a lengthy draft Bristol Bay watershed report compiled by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Now the federal agency hopes to complete its final report by the end of the year, after which it will make a decision on whether to stop development of the massive copper, gold and molybdenum mine.

Dennis McLerran, administrator of EPA Region 10 in Seattle, said the goal is to get the science right before making any final decisions. At this point, no decision has been made on which of the available Clean Water Act options to use, depending on conclusions reached, McLerran said.

Of the more than 200,000 people who submitted written comments on the draft assessment, roughly 90 percent of them supported the EPA’ s draft document findings, McLerran noted in a news conference Aug. 7, during a break in public testimony before the peer review panel of 12 scientists selected by EPA’s contractor, Versar. Versar served as the facilitator for the three-day event, which included a day of public testimony, a day of public discussion by the peer reviewers and then a day for the peer reviewers to privately compile their comments, which were given to Versar to prepare the overall summary for the EPA.

The final peer review report is to be released to the public by the EPA later this fall.

The controversial mine plan, developed for the Pebble Limited Partnership has over the past several years drawn both criticism and support from thousands of individuals, and business and professional groups and organizations nationwide.

The big concern among opponents of the mine, who include thousands of people involved in commercial, sport and subsistence fishing, is that the mine will have adverse effects on habitat critical to the Bristol Bay sockeye salmon fishery, the largest such fishery in the world, which provides thousands of jobs and sustenance to people, as well as food for wildlife throughout the Bristol Bay region.

Mining proponents contend that the mine can be built and operate in harmony with the fishery, a stance questioned by at least several of the peer review scientists. 

Record Prices for Norton Sound Red King Crab

The 2012 Norton Sound summer king crab fishery has set a record in ex-vessel value, with fishermen paid a range of $5.25 to $5.60 a pound for their harvest.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game said Norton Sound permit holders harvested 440,000 pounds of red king crab in the open access commercial king crab fishery for a record payout of $2.4 million.  It was back-to-back record payouts for Norton Sound crab fishermen as this year’s ex-vessel value exceeded the previous record ex-vessel value of $22 million in 2011.

The record harvest of nearly 3 million pounds of Norton Sound red king crab in 1979 paid only 75 cents a pound.  This summer’s harvest was the highest red king crab harvest for Norton Sound since 1986.

The community development quota portion of the crab fishery remains open with slightly over 17,000 pounds of red king crab remaining on the quota of 34,910 pounds.  The combined open access and CDQ harvest this year will be about 475,000 pounds of crab.

Canine Salmon Snack Producer Expands to Phoenix

An Anchorage producer of canine salmon treats which utilize fish byproducts from other seafood producers has opened facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, to better serve a growing demand in the continental United States.

Arctic Paws, the producer of Yummy Chummies, is now warehousing and packaging product in the new Arizona location, and in all likelihood, production facilities will be going in there too, said Brett Gibson, the owner of the firm.

The company will continue to maintain its facilities in Anchorage, but the new facility will likely produce as much, if not more than the Alaska location, Gibson said.

The decision to open facilities in Phoenix was likely an important move in securing Arctic Paws’ latest major contract, to supply Sam’s Clubs nationwide with an order of 180,000 bags of the original Yummy Chummies snacks, he said. The original snack, which contains wheat, is also sold online and in other stores nationwide.

Costco stores offer Yummy Chummies Gold, a grain free product, with a hint of rosemary extract.

The company also produces Yummy Chummies salmon with cranberries and blueberries, salmon with sweet potato, and salmon with carrots, kelp and spinach.

The high cost of shipping ingredients and packaging materials to Alaska and then shipping finished product south to consumers in the Lower 48, particularly for rush orders, has been a major cost consideration for Alaska manufacturers for years.

As the cost of shipping rises, Alaska manufacturers have often felt compelled to make arrangements for warehousing nearer to their customer base.

Gibson is particularly pleased with the fact that Yummy Chummies offer a nutritious pet product that fully utilizes the heads, bellies, trim, tails, collars and skin left after the salmon are filleted or roe stripped. It was his concern over the waste of fish byproducts that prompted him to start the business several years back.

“Fish byproduct in this state has become a big deal,” he said. What Arctic Paws offers is not a complete solution, but it has resulted in agreements with several Alaska seafood processors who deliver these scraps “nice and iced,” Gibson said. For these processors, it’s a very good way to dispose of this product, he said.

Fairground Is Venue for Salmon In School Lunches Test

Nutritionists seeking the public’s opinion on how to include wild Alaska salmon in school lunches are weighing the results of a state fair taste test of three fish entrees that could eventually be served up to students in rural Alaska.

More than 300 men, women and children attending the Tanana Valley Fair in Fairbanks in early August sampled salmon patties, salmon patties with sauce and sweet and sour salmon balls with brown rice, then offered their opinions to researchers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The taste test is part of a much larger effort under way to determine future rural school lunch plans. It could also potentially improve local markets for commercial harvesters and processors.

The goal of researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks is to provide healthier lunches with wild Alaska salmon and then measure the health impacts on the kids themselves. Recipes for the taste testing were created by the Cooperative Extension Service in Fairbanks, in collaboration with the Alaska Farm to School Program, and will include a taste test between local and imported vegetables as well.

Andrea Bersamin, the research project’s principal investigator, is a nutrition professor at UAF.

The goal, she said, “is to find a way for more Alaska commercial fish to stay in the state while providing an excellent source of local food for Alaska’s children. Beyond the nutritional values, the project includes an economic feasibility study, curriculum and program development. Some of the grant money will be used to purchase fish for the program from area fishermen and fish processors, once local preferences for how the fish should be prepared are established, so the program could have the added bonus of boosting local economies.

The taste tests began earlier this summer at the Center for Alaska Native Health Research at UAF. The center is part of the UAF Institute of Arctic Biology, which funded the research through a $1.1 million federal Department of Agriculture grant.

New Technology for Finding Fish

By Kathy A. Smith

As today’s technologies continue to be developed in many industries and for personal use, they are finding their way into marine electronics and making the job of catching fish easier.

One item that’s new on the horizon for navigation products is NavNet TZtouch from Camas, Washington-headquartered Furuno USA, Inc. the first multi-touch-based system in the industry. “It comes as a standard chart plotter, and you can add as many features as you want like radar, fish finders and AIS components,” says Jeff Kauzlaric, Advertising & Communications Manager.

The multi-function display allows users to easily scroll charts and move between screens. A unique RotoKey can be turned to zoom in and out, and when depressed, a touch screen menu appears. The “pinch-to-zoom” function is similar to the movement used on a smart phone or IPad. Moving through the chart and adding or deleting waypoints or creating a completely new route can be done quickly with a high degree of accuracy. “One of the things with traditional chart plotters that has been cumbersome to do is enter in routes and waypoints. You have to get into menus to do that kind of thing. With TZtouch, now you can just touch the screen and it becomes active,” he says.

And building on the NavNet 3D multi-function display (the difference is the keypad control), the user can view a chart in 3D mode by simply taking two fingers and swiping up on the display. It also has built-in WIFI for downloading, for instance, weather forecasts which are overlayed on a chart in the weather screen. The system can also be connected to smart phones and tablets and comes in a 9-inch or 14-inch design. “If you’re on the back of the boat and you want to take a look at what you’re going over right now, you can actually pull up the fish finder screen on your phone,” Kauzlaric adds.

The company’s MaxSea TimeZero PC charting software product can also be connected to the NavNet TZtouch and NavNet 3D products. “If you wanted, you could begin planning a route on a chart at home and put in different waypoints and then when you’re on the boat, you can transfer the information through your laptop’s Ethernet system and then start up the MaxSea software and it would transfer it over. It also has a personal bathymetric generator so you can take the information that’s coming in from the sounder and it will draw the seafloor surface in 3D. That’s really useful for finding out where the fish are.”

Furuno’s BR500 BNWAS, Bridge Navigation Watch Alarm System is an alarm/alert system that will sound various alarms on the bridge or in navigator staterooms and living quarters if it senses inactivity on the bridge for a predetermined period of time. “The only way you can turn it off is if you go up onto the bridge,” says Kauzlaric. “It eliminates somebody falling asleep or somebody getting hurt who is unable to operate the vessel and it warns the crew to come up to the bridge and deal with the situation.”
Kauzlaric say’s it’s mandatory on larger vessels like tankers, “but we’re starting to see the commercial fishing industry take note. They’re out there working for hours at a time and, as they’re motoring back, they need to make sure they’re staying awake.” The device can be hooked up several ways, for instance with a toggle switch that when hit, automatically resets the timer or it can be hooked into the radar system or to a motion sensor.

When it comes to electronic navigation product trends, Erik Sundholm, Vice President of Seattle-headquartered Harris Electric, Inc., a marine electronics dealer and electrical contractor, says, “In our region, Electronic Charts Co. (ECC) has been the industry standard for more than a decade. It offers navigation software with special features such as terrain building by interfacing with a depth sounder, has a 3D module and specialized updates like the Yearly Alaskan Rookeries. Olex, a Norwegian software program that is distributed by Simrad Fisheries, is a bathymetric chart plotter that has gained popularity and market share over that past few years. In addition, we see Nobeltec and Furuno’s MaxSea on a lot of our customers’ vessels. The most popular radar model for our fishing customers is the Furuno FR 21x7 series.”

Besides its Seattle location, the company also operates year-round out of Dutch Harbor, Alaska and seasonally out of Naknek, Alaska, where they operate stores for those fishing for crab, Pollock and salmon. “It’s not as busy as it has been but in Alaska, they are starting to build new vessels, so capital investment is starting to occur.”

Sundholm says over the years, he has seen electronic equipment become more sophisticated. “It reflects what is happening with technology in our world,” he says. “Think about how much more sophisticated an iPhone is compared to a mobile phone of 10 years ago. The equipment is integrated much more than it used to be.”

Simrad Fisheries’ Olex 3D Bathymetric plotter includes traditional navigation features like waypoints, ARPA, AIS, routing, autopilot interface and sequencing along a route. As Michael Hillers, General Manager of the Lynnwood, Washington company says: “Simrad Fisheries is primarily focused on fishing acoustics and navigating toward the fish. This is accomplished in two ways; a sonar detects fish targets up to several thousand meters away and the vessel advances towards them; or bottom data is collected on the Olex, which allows a fisherman to navigate towards the fish based upon the bottom contours and bottom hardness. This puts the fishermen in the proper location to target fish or shellfish based upon the Olex’s recorded fish or shellfish habitat.

The ability to map the seafloor for both contours and habitat exists as does the ability to determine the length of the fish and the biomass in an area. This is due to the ES70 echosounder and the ES70-Olex interface. In fisheries acoustics, the long-term goal is species identification. The ability to target the right species and the right size of the target species is the key to sustainable fisheries. These tools and the ability to implement these tools into a system that allows only the right fish to be caught is the goal.”

Trawl monitoring is the next step to sustainability. For that purpose, Simrad has developed a unique camera system called the FX80 that allows real-time video of the activity in and around the trawl to be viewed in the wheelhouse. In 2007, the company first introduced a series of sensors to measure distances between points of a deployed trawl. This allowed trawl manufacturers to measure excluder flaps; to show the flap opening and how far they open. In conjunction with depth, the sensors and a recording camera placed strategically on the net, an idea of how the net was “flying” could be determined. However, the camera footage could only be viewed when the camera was retrieved, hindering gathering real-time data.

There were two critical design issues, explains Hillers. “No fisherman would be willing to lose his third wire trawl sonar picture, so the camera needed to work simultaneously with the trawl sonar, and we needed the video to come up 3,000 meters of existing coax cable and through a set of sliprings. In initial tests in 2010 we hoped to achieve five frames a second, however we achieved 25 frames per second.”

Hillers reports the first commercial use of the FX80 on a commercial fishing vessel will take place in August in the Bering Sea. In addition to the initial installation on a Bering Sea Pollock trawler, additional units are being installed on ground fish vessels fishing in the Gulf of Alaska this summer.

“The FX80 concept has been very well received by fishermen as well as the door and trawl manufacturers who are very anxious to have the ability to actually see what’s going on underwater,” he says. “There is no shortage of ideas being proposed for trawling regarding capturing the target fish and leaving the by-catch in the water alive and unharmed. Real-time video is going to have an explosive impact upon implementation of these ideas. This product continues our philosophy of promoting green fishing by using technology to leave the non-target species and the over or undersized of the target species in the water intact and healthy.”