January kicks off Alaska fishing

Lots of fishing and forecasts for 2023Alaska fish harvests for 2023 are being revealed almost daily by state and federal managers, ranging from salmon to groundfish to crab and herring.Here’s a sampler so far, with some added commentary:The bulk of Alaska’s seafood by far is taken from fishing grounds ranging from three to 200 miles offshore that are managed by federal overseers. The volume taken from the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska includes more than two dozen types of groundfish, or whitefish, such as cod, pollock, rockfish, perch and other species and totals nearly 5.5 billion pounds for 2023.The fishing cycle begins each year on January 1, when fishermen drop pots and baited hooks for Pacific Cod.That’s followed by pollock, the nation’s largest food fishery, starting on January 20. More than three billion pounds of pollock will be harvested by trawlers in Alaska waters in both 2023 and 2024. A state-water pollock fishery also occurs in Prince William Sound.According to NOAA data,...