rolling and trawling are both methods of catching fish, but don’t mistake one for the other. Trawling involves a net dragged behind one or more boats, at midwater or at the bottom. Individuals rarely, if ever, go trawling, but trolling is something anyone can do. Hang a rod over the boat’s stern, let the line play out with a baited hook, travel at a low speed, and hope for a bite. That’s trolling.

Commercial trolling, then, is a larger boat and more lines and hooks with a capacity to catch many more fish. These boats have four to six main wire lines, each sporting a 50-pound lead or cast-iron sinker or cannon ball on its terminal end, as well as eight to twelve nylon leaders spaced out along its length, each of which ends in a lure or baited hook.

Outriggers prevent the lines from becoming entangled, and the long poles attached to the boat look like wings. While trolling, downriggers keep the bait or lure at the desired depth (which depends on the species being fished) by means of a weighted horizontal pole.

To bring the fish in, the lines are wound on small onboard spools called hand trollers if they’re operated by hand cranking or power trollers if operated with hydraulic power. A gaff—a long pole with a barbed hook on the end—grabs the fish and flips them onto the deck or hold.

Trolling is one of the most selective fishing methods, resulting in less incidental bycatch because it targets fish that are quick and follow a fast-moving, baited hook. Therefore, trolling is one of the less environmentally damaging methods of fishing.

“Fish are caught one at a time, immediately cleaned and iced or frozen to temperatures approaching -40°F,” according to the Alaska Trollers Association (ATA), which makes the catch high-quality and in demand by upscale restaurants and discerning fish lovers.

In Southeast, this fishery sustains families and the broader communities with jobs, purchase of supplies and gear, and of course, fresh salmon to eat. Fishing is also an important indigenous cultural tradition.

The ATA website says, “Seafood is the number one private sector employer in the state of Alaska. The troll fleet is one of the largest in the state, and its permit holders are 85 percent resident.”

Trolling provides more jobs for Alaskans than any other fishery and is especially important to those who live in smaller communities; roughly one of every forty people in the Alaska Panhandle works on the back deck of a troll boat, according to ATA.

Approximately 1,450 fishermen earn income directly from the fishery, including skippers (permit holders) and crew, as reported in a 2019 McDowell Group study for the Northern Southeast Regional Aquaculture Association.

Trolling is essentially a year-round salmon fishery, providing fishermen with consistent revenue and delivering high-quality fresh fish to markets during months when fresh salmon is usually not available.

The fishery is divided into three openings: fall, winter, and spring.

The 2022/2023 winter troll fishery for Southeast Alaska/Yakutat opened on October 11, 2022, and closed March 15, 2023.

The spring troll fishery targets Alaska hatchery-produced Chinook salmon, also known as king salmon, with openings of May 1, June 8, or June 15, as Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) manages each troll district individually. Fishing areas may change from year to year and are announced after the department conducts a series of meetings in several Southeast towns.

The summer troll fishery opens June 15 or July 1, depending on the district, and closes September 30, wherein Chinook salmon may be harvested only during open periods announced by ADF&G.

Trolling is also a fishery that’s easily accessible by those who cannot afford to participate in larger fisheries that have more complex and costly gear and vessels. It also has the least expensive permit.

Marcie Hinde of Alaskan Quota & Permits says a gillnet permit can run as much as $68,000, whereas she sold a power troll permit for $26,000 in December, but she also has one for as low as $9,000.

The Southeast troll fishery is not new. According to ADF&G’s “History of the Winter Salmon Troll Fishery in Southeast Alaska/Yakutat” by Pattie Skannes and Grant Hagerman, trolling began near Ketchikan in 1905 and was open year-round until 1950, when regulations shortened its opening from October or November to closing by late April.

By the ‘20s, Tlingit and Haida fishermen adopted mobile fishing gear that became the economic foundation for most villages.

By 1994, the average winter troll catch had increased to 63,600 fish in the 1992 to 1994 winter seasons, compared to an average of 37,000 from 1986 to 1991. The increased landings spurred new regulations aimed to reduce the troll Chinook salmon harvest, closing some of the most productive areas and introducing guideline harvest levels.

The winter Chinook salmon troll fishery in Southeast is managed in accordance with the Alaska Board of Fisheries Winter Troll Management Plan and the Pacific Salmon Treaty (PST).

In 1985, the United States and Canada agreed to cooperate in the management, research, and enhancement of Pacific salmon stocks of mutual concern by ratifying the PST. It outlines how the two countries carry out their salmon fisheries and enhancement programs to prevent overfishing, to provide for optimum production, and to ensure both countries receive benefits equal to the production of salmon originating in their waters.

Under the PST, both countries agreed to account for the desirability of reducing interceptions, avoiding undue disruption of existing fisheries, and annual variations in abundance of the stocks.

In 2019, the parties implemented a new ten-year agreement for the treaty that noted concern about the Chinook salmon population.

While the PST stated that many Chinook stocks are healthy and meet the goals for long-term production, others are identified as conservation concerns, including some in the Pacific Northwest listed under the US Endangered Species Act and some in Canada that are assessed to be at increasing risk of extinction.

The treaty fishery management measures are intended to recover, sustain, and protect Chinook salmon stocks in Canada and the United States. They are also meant to respond to changes in productivity of Chinook salmon stocks associated with environmental conditions as well as long-term cumulative effects, particularly by chronic habitat degradation, harmful hatchery practices, cyclic natural phenomena, and large-scale environmental variability that affect marine and freshwater habitats.

Under the management provisions of the treaty, ADF&G announced at the end of March that the preseason all-gear catch limit for Southeast is 206,027 Chinook salmon for 2023. Of that, 149,100 goes to the troll fishery. This year’s target includes a 2 percent reduction from the treaty catch limit that will serve as a buffer to avoid exceeding the all-gear limit and the treaty’s pay back clause, which doesn’t allow Alaska to go over its allocation.

ADF&G has closed several Alaska commercial fisheries due to low numbers of the resource, including the first-time ever closure in October of the Bering Sea snow crab harvest and the second consecutive year of closure of the Bristol Bay red king crab season, as well as the closure of the east side of the Cook Inlet set net fishery and the Kenai River and Cook Inlet to sport fishing for king salmon. Closures massively affect the lives of fishermen, their families, and their communities.

Even in California, in response to crashing Chinook salmon populations, the Pacific Fisheries Management Council has preliminary plans to close this year’s ocean salmon commercial fisheries in all areas from the Oregon/California border to the US/Mexico border, given the low abundance forecasts for both Klamath and Sacramento River fall Chinook.

Last year, the Wild Fish Conservancy Northwest, a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington State, filed a lawsuit in federal court claiming that the Southeast troll fishery was endangering Puget Sound orca whales because it catches too many of the orcas’ favored prey. The court ruled the National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries) had violated the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act in approving salmon harvests in the Southeast troll fishery. Ironically, Puget Sound Chinook salmon are also considered an endangered species.

The Wild Fish Conservancy Northwest argued that 97 percent of the fish caught in Alaska don’t originate there, while ADF&G says that only 2 percent of the fish caught in Southeast originate in Puget Sound.

Legal pushback followed, with lawyers for Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski and Representative Mary Sattler Peltola filing an amicus brief in March in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington. The Alaska House of Representatives also passed a joint resolution in support of the Southeast Alaska troll fishery.

Local governments in Juneau, Wrangell, Sitka, Ketchikan, and Petersburg also passed resolutions to oppose the lawsuit.

In response, Emma Helverson, executive director of Wild Fish Conservancy Northwest, issued a statement of sympathy. “I want to emphasize that Alaskan fishers are not to blame for NOAA’s chronic mismanagement of this fishery, and we are sympathetic to the burden this decision may pose on Southeast Alaskan communities,” Helverson said.

Amy Daugherty, executive director of the Alaska Trollers Association, told Juneau radio station KINY, “It’s incomprehensible that the Wild Fish Conservancy is looking 1,000 miles up the coast to place the blame on the Southeast trolling fishery when there are many other fisheries between Washington and Southeast marine waters.”

Daugherty added, “Our allocation through treaty has diminished over 50 percent in the last three treaties that we signed with Washington, Oregon, and Canada.”

For Juneau troll fisherman Joe Emerson, the suit brings frustration and uncertainty to the future of his four-generation livelihood. “I question their good faith,” says Emerson, referring to the Wild Fish Conservancy. “It’s attacking the number one Chinook salmon advocates on the West Coast.”

Emerson adds, “Before the suit, they never contacted the Alaska Trollers Association—not once—but immediately sued us.”

On May 2, Judge Richard Jones of the US District Court of Western Washington issued an order that vacates the Incidental Take Statement that governs the Southeast summer and winter fisheries.

In a press release, the Alaska Trollers Association stated it is working with its attorney, the State of Alaska, and the National Marine Fisheries Service on the next steps, including appealing the ruling and likely asking for a stay of the order.

Shoreline Wild Salmon in Pelican, population eighty-six, was founded by Marie Rose in 2016 when she was working as an activist for the conservation organization Salmon Beyond Borders, a nonprofit that aims to protect the transboundary rivers between Canada and the United States.

Rose met Emerson and another fisherman, Keith Heller, and the three had an idea to offer sustainable troll-caught wild Alaska fish for sale to the Lower 48. Their fish are sold in fifty stores and through their Shoreline Wild Salmon website. The company was recognized in April by Good Housekeeping as one of the ten best seafood delivery services of 2023 (Anchorage-based Alaskan Salmon Company is also among the top ten).

Shoreline Wild Salmon sells Chinook in quantities of five pounds at $35.99 per pound, ten pounds for $32 per pound (free shipping), and fifteen pounds at $28.99 per pound (free shipping).

Shoreline Wild Salmon is just one of countless examples of how the troll fishery touches the lives of Southeast residents and beyond, providing not just employment but a healthy, sustainable food to fish lovers everywhere.