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CHARLESTON - One weekend of nice weather, a closed
summer salmon season and a harbor full of fishermen anxious to get on the
water - it's a recipe for a glut of fish on a market already nearly saturated
with Chinook.
Buyers noted there are a lot of fish being caught in California and salmon
from Alaska is always a competitor when supermarkets place their seafood
orders.
"They're all going in
the freezer," said Scott Adams, production manager at Hallmark Fisheries
in Charleston, said of the fish he's buying as another boat pulled away from
the dock Tuesday after unloading its fish.
Without a big market for all the fresh fish, it's a gamble for processors to
stockpile their product, then try to sell it later at a price that will cover
purchasing it from the fisherman plus the cost of processing and storage. That
often drives the price down to harvesters.
The salmon season opened again on Sept. 1, right before Labor Day weekend, a
holiday weekend when many buyers were closed. Most fishermen could keep their
fish on ice until Tuesday. By that morning, boats were lined up in Charleston
to unload, and buyers and processors were hustling to get the fresh Chinook
off the boats and either in the freezer or to other buyers.
Salmon trollers were paid an average of between $2.25 and $3 a pound,
depending on the quality of the fish and who was buying the product. That's
down from around a high of about $5 a pound when the season opened in March.
The Oregon salmon industry often has the selling advantage in March, being the
first to open ahead of Alaska, Washington and California. It's an edge that
usually fades as the season continues and prices drop later in the summer.
But the good news is that perhaps local trollers can make up the difference on
volume.
"There was a lot of fish and then the price dropped," Seahawk
Seafood owner George Paynter said Tuesday. He said he bought enough fish from
four boats to fill his fresh market demands and he plans on buying more to
freeze for the winter.
Many of the fish were big.
"The fish are nice; good sizes," Oregon Brand Seafood general
manager Bernie Michalke said.
"There was a lot of 25 (pound) and up that I got," Paynter said.
"I heard of a few 40-pounders. There aren't a lot of medium and small
sizes."
The weather has since turned foggy, Paynter said, and some fishermen likely
won't fish, providing an opportunity for the markets to turn around. Much of
the fish may be sold, eliminating the glut.
"The bad weather should clear the system out," he said.
Source: http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2005/09/08/news/news01.txt
