Ocean Beauty is on the lookout for more Bristol Bay fishers and their vessels, hoping to sign on a considerable crew that will deliver to the Seattle, Wash.-based processor for the 2016 Bristol Bay sockeye season.
While the preference is for Bristol Bay residents at this time, the company will be open to fishers hailing from outside these parameters if not enough residents are able to sign on, according to Norm Van, CEO of Bristol Bay Economic Development Corporation, which owns 50 percent of Ocean Beauty.
“At this point, our preference is Bristol Bay residents," he said. "At some point, I’m sure OceanBeauty will open it up to everyone if they don’t have enough qualified Bristol Bay residents that apply. The hope is – where Ocean Beauty does a really good job is on the eastside of Bristol Bay, in particular the Naknek-Kvichak, and Egegik and Ugashik. Those are the river systems that they tender well, and I think do a really good job in, so the hope is, it’s individuals who want to fish basically on the eastside,” Van told KDLG.org.
By next summer, Ocean Beauty hopes to have 10-15 additional boats, Van concluded.
The latest forecast for the Bristol Bay sockeye harvest this year is 29.52 million fish, a 17 percent drop from what was hauled in by fishers last year, per the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G).
