A dozen young fishermen completed Kodiak’s first training program to give them an idea of life on the water and learn marine safety. The three day certification program finished days before some of the first openers for salmon seining around the archipelago.

Kodiak’s commercial salmon season started on June 9 at noon. That’s according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s first announcement for the area this year. Duck Bay, Izhut Bay, and both the inner and outer Kitoi Bay areas will open until further notice, including the Foul Bay special harvest area.

Alaska's Legislature adjourned on May 20 without addressing an issue that many residents of coastal, Native villages see as urgent: expanding access to commercial fishing careers.

Corey Potter was sentenced to a year in jail and two years of probation after he plead guilty to two counts of violating the Lacey Act for shipping Tanners with Bitter Crab Syndrome.

The average age of a fisherman in Alaska has increased to fifty, which is ten years older than it was one generation ago, according to “Turning the Tide," a report from a UAF College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences research team.

Companies must demonstrate they are unable to fill processing jobs with American workers, and then through the temporary H-2B visa program, they hire thousands of guest workers to meet the needs of Alaska’s labor-intensive, high-volume commercial fishing seasons.

Doug Vincent-Lang told attendees of ComFish that he supports a bill to lift the state’s decades-old ban on finfish farming. He said if this presented a direct threat to commercial fishermen and wild stock fisheries, then he wouldn’t support it.

“We have the potential for a Magnuson-Stevens Act reauthorization in this Congress. That is something that has come up," Rep. Nick Begich III told a packed room of ComFish attendees at Kodiak's Best Western Inn on April 16.

"And we continue to plan for our other surveys but it’s not clear what we will be able to execute for the rest of the year," Bob Foy, the director of NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center said.

This year’s Comfish kicked off with a fish taco night at Kodiak Island Brewing and Still on Monday, April 14, and the forum sessions begin at 9:45 a.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at the Best Western/Kodiak Inn’s harbor room.