First out of the chute is the Kodiak-Alaska Peninsula crab season, which opens Jan. 15. The Kodiak districts will have a combined quota of 700,000 pounds, up from 500,000 last year. The Alaska Peninsula has a quota of 500,000 pounds, up from 275,000 last year.

There is a 20-pot limit for the Kodiak district, and a 30-pot limit for the Alaska Peninsula. The Kodiak fishery went to a limited entry system in 2004, with 180 permits. The Alaska Peninsula fishery is open-access.

The quota increase comes largely from a year class that the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has been keeping an eye on for some time, according to Wayne Donaldson, Kodiak regional shellfish/groundfish coordinator.

"We've been tracking a year class for several years, and it's really the very beginning of the year class entering the legal size," Donaldson said. "We're seeing an up-tick from last year, but most of the year class still remains sub-legals or pre-recruits."

That's good news for future fisheries, he said.

"You never want to take anything to the bank when you're dealing with crab, because sometimes they do go through swings that you don't anticipate, but we're expecting that the population of legals would be larger next year."

The Kodiak fishery has had a roller coaster ride throughout its history. It first opened in 1967 with a harvest of 1.1 million pounds. Harvest peaked in the winter of 1977-1978 with just more than 33 million pounds, and then closed down completely after the 1994 harvest of 1.2 million pounds. It re-opened in 2001 with a 510,000 pound harvest.

Since re-opening, the harvest has ranged from 360,000 pounds to 2.1 million pounds, which occurred in 2006.

"That was kind of the peak of the other two strong year classes that had been moving through the population, and then it started trailing off after that," Donaldson said.

Kodiak bairdi tanners, the larger cousin of the Bering Sea opilio tanners, which are marketed as snow crab, generally fetch just over $2 per pound for fishermen. The price peaked in 1987 at $2.45 per pound, which would be $4.58 per pound today, adjusted for inflation.

Togiak sac roe herring is also expecting a large quota increase, although that doesn't necessarily mean an increased harvest.

The 2010 quota is set at 25,905 tons, up from a 2009 quota of 21,260 tons. However, the 2009 harvest was 16,571 tons, due to market constraints. The herring are harvested for their roe, which goes to Japan, and fishermen generally fish until their market is filled.

The 10-year average for the Togiak herring quota is 21,322 tons. The fishery generally gets under way in late April or early May.

The Bristol Bay sockeye salmon season, which kicks off in June, is also expecting a large run, predicted at nearly 40 million fish, with a commercial harvest of 30.5 million fish, 13 percent higher than the 10-year average.

The 2009 season had a forecast of a 24 million fish harvest, but saw an actual harvest of 30.4 million fish, with a total run of 40 million fish. If the 2010 harvest comes in that far over the forecast, it would mean a harvest of around 38 million sockeye.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game states that the 2010 forecast is not unexpected. Recent runs to Bristol Bay have been fairly productive and stable. Since 2004, total runs have averaged 42.8 million sockeye, and ranged from 39.3 million in 2005 to 46 million in 2007. The department, however, said it is unsure if the recent trend of productivity and stability will continue, as historically runs to Bristol Bay have been highly variable. If the 2010 forecast is accurate, it would be the seventh consecutive year where the run is close to or exceeds 40 million sockeye.

One problem for that large of run is that processors often put fishermen on daily poundage limits due to processing capacity restraints, which cuts deeply into profits for the season. During the 2009 season, some or all processors had their fishermen on daily limits between June 30 and July 6, the peak of the run. June 30 was the earliest day on record that fishermen were put on limits.

Some fishermen have called for the state to allow foreign-flagged processing vessels to buy fish in Bristol Bay to take up the slack, but the state has never done so. A study done in 2008 by the Juneau-based McDowell group found that 37 million sockeye worth $131 million had gone unharvested over the previous five years due to processor limits.

Cristy Fry has commercial fished in Homer since 1978. She also designs and builds gear for the industry. She currently longlines for halibut and gillnets salmon in upper Cook Inlet aboard the F/V Realist. She can be reached at realist468@gmail.com.