By Margaret Bauman
Alaska Journal of Commerce

Pacific cod fishermen in state waters for the Kodiak, South Alaska Peninsula and Chignik areas have been allocated slightly more than 27 million pounds of harvest for the upcoming 2005 season, state fisheries officials said Jan. 6.

That's down slightly from about 29 million pounds a year ago, said Kally Stalinger, a state shellfish and groundfish biologist at Kodiak.

Pacific cod fisheries in state waters for the Kodiak and South Alaska Peninsula areas open seven days after the current federally managed Gulf of Alaska Pacific cod fisheries close, while the Chignik area fishery always opens March 1. The state waters fishery for Kodiak opens Feb. 7 and the south peninsula fishery on March 1, Stalinger said.

The guideline harvest level for the Kodiak area this year is 9.13 million pounds, down from 9.9 million pounds a year ago, Stalinger said. For the south Alaska Peninsula, the allowable catch will be 11.53 million pounds, down from 12.5 million pounds a year earlier. For the Chignik area, biologists have set a limit of 6.39 million pounds of Pacific cod, down from 6.9 million pounds in 2004, she said.

The harvest level for the Kodiak area is set at 12.5 percent of the allowable catch for the federal Pacific cod fishery in the central Gulf of Alaska. For the south peninsula, the allowable catch is 25 percent of the total allowable catch for the western gulf fishery, and for Chignik, it is 8.75 percent of the allowable catch in the central gulf federal fishery, she said.

For the Kodiak area, the guideline harvest level will be equally divided between pot gear and jig gear. In the Chignik area, 90 percent of the harvest is allocated to pot gear and in the South Peninsula area, 85 percent of the harvest is similarly allocated to pot gear, state biologists said.