SpringVelocity
Crew Member
SV,
I think it was a pretty decent run this year. It started fairly early, late January/early February, and some of the regulars were still catching some off the Admirals bridge last week. I don't have a boat (don't need bait) so I only went down a few times to fish for enough for a fresh meal, but checked it out regularly and a lot of people seemed to be taking quite a few given that the run is barely recovering. I was shocked when I heard several people had 400 or 500 in their freezers and were still catching them. About three weeks ago one guy told me he already had 450 in his freezer for halibut fishing (how many herring do you need to catch six halibut?) and now was just catching them for fertilizer for his garden -- he was still catching them last Tuesday. I really don't understand why anyone would feel the need to do that, given the still-fragile state of the run.
Anyway, the run has been tailing off the last few weeks and is probably pretty much done now.
Many of the fish were on the small size -- five or six inches -- but there were a few waves of larger herring in the 10 inch to 12 inch range.
There was someone down there doing creel counts fairly regularly, so maybe there will be an estimate published at some point.
Personally, I wouldn't mind if they closed the fishery for a couple of years to see if the run will really rebound.
That is extremely positive news .