USA: Togiak 2022 herring forecast for all fisheries is the highest ever

The 2022 mature herring biomass forecast is 357,536 tons and is the highest forecast since an age structured assessment model was first used for the 1993 forecast., Under a 20% exploitation rate, the 2022 potential harvest is 71,507 tons in all fisheries and 65,107 tons in the Togiak sac roe fisheries (purse seine and gillnet)., The large forecast is due primarily to the largest estimated recruitment of age-4 fish on record in 2021 (about 1.5 times larger than the large recruitments seen in the early 1980s) and one of the largest recruitments on record in 2020., These cohorts are projected to make up an even larger portion of the population in 2022 due to increasing maturity. The majority of the ...