August 6, 2018 — Summer is the season in which many Alaskans look to fill the freezer while scientists spend their days in the field collecting data from some of the daily catches.
“We went out for halibut and we came back with halibut,” sport angler Fred Coffifield said. He, his wife and a few family members spent Thursday fishing out of Homer.
The Alaska town filled with natural beauty proudly promotes itself as the “halibut capital of the world.” But it’s not just anglers looking to win the derby or prepare their best Halibut Olympia who seek the denizens of the deep.
Kerri Foote is a fishery technician with the Department of Fish and Game. Her job is to collect halibut and rockfish carcasses. During her shift, she visits fillet tables on the Homer Spit, takes the donated fish and measures the length, records the sex, and removes the otolith — a bone from the fish’s ear.
“It allows us to ask the question of how many fish we can take from a fishery every given year,” said Martin Schuster, a fisheries biologist with Fish and Game.