Buchanan Salmon Fishing

Commercial Fishing for Wild Alaskan Salmon

Seward

When ‘enhancement’ Really Means Elimination

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I’ve spent November to April working on Alaska Board of Fish issues, proposals, and comments (again!) and I’m sick of it. We’ve been fighting the local aquaculture aggrandizement for SIXTEEN years. When I worked my first season on a salmon seiner in Resurrection Bay, there were 6 seiners working hard, from the 6am start until the wind blew too hard to make fishing worthwhile. Every day that we could as the salmon returned.

Now there’s one–that is ONE– boat working (not very hard) because the ONLY opportunity to fish is given to the aquaculture association.

But that’s not the worst of it. Nope. Here’s the worst: they killed off the early natural run and fucked up their man-made run, so the return is so bad that no one is catching salmon. Because they’ve been decimated.

I can’t wait for that weir to be removed and the aquaculture association, too. This is the year it should happen…any day now…

A Seiner’s Story

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I’ve got a long history of teaching greenhorns how to fish and speaking out against fish farming and hatcheries, so when a former deckhand said “I’m writing a book about it” I said I’d help. We never knew it would grow into 10 books (Secret Bay and Midnight Bay haven’t been released yet). They have 5 star reviews, and are available on Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo, and Amazon.

Petition to Stop CIAA Loans

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I am circulating a petition to stop Cook Inlet Aquaculture from digging ME deeper into debt with more loans for worthless, often detrimental projects.

Because the loans CIAA takes out are MY responsibility to repay – yes, they really are a financial burden to me – I need to stop their continuing loan debt. At $20 million dollars IN DEBT, with no viable revenue, they need to be stopped. I’m on a mission to return control to the people who LIVE IN SEWARD and depend on our local salmon.

This organization was a long-standing funnel for federal funds that nose-dived when it needed to stand on its own after losing its prime supporter, Ted Stevens.

In 2010 CIAA asked for 100% of the Resurrection Bay sockeye run and even sought to halt SPORT fishing. From that day forward they have BATTLED local fishermen for OUR resource.

The weir at Bear Creek is mismanaged, the fish are mistreated, the escapement is far too low, and ADF&G has wrongly allowed the entity to have FAR too much control over our local salmon resources. This needs to stop. The Trail Lakes Hatchery is a disaster, destroying more fry than it supplies. Here’s the report.

Contact me to chat – Tom Buchanan, born and raised in Seward, passionate fisherman. tmbfish [at ] gmail.com