Are Your Alaska Commercial Fishing Permits Ready for the Season?

If you work in the commercial fishing business, you are no stranger to preparation. You understand what it means to spend long hours or even days out at sea, often in treacherous weather. Before you head out to haul in your catch, you need to make sure your boat is well-equipped for the outing. This means having extensive rain gear, and enough food for your crew (you are going to want to have a gallery on your commercial fishing boat). You also need to have an adequate or surplus supply of life preservers. Even the strongest swimmers can struggle in the currents found at sea. Commercial fishing also requires the handling of heavy, dangerous equipment, and it is not all that unusual for injuries or accidents to occur. With this in mind, you need to make sure that your first aid kit has everything you need in the event of an emergency. Before you untie from the dock, you should absolutely double-check that your radio is in good working order as well. Lastly, as we enter yet another commercial fishing season, are your Alaska commercial fishing permits current?

Commercial fishing is a major, global industry. Every year, in America alone, nearly two million jobs are created and billions of dollars change hands due to industrial fishing. As fresh seafood is always in demand, this line of work comes with job security if you are willing to put in long, arduous hours. With the right Alaska commercial fishing permits, you can set up a lucrative business that you can keep in your family for generations to come. Why Alaska? Well, why not? With thousands of miles of coastline and access to profitable species like snow crab and halibut, there are not many better places on Earth to fish than Alaska. Of course, the weather conditions in this northern state can be extreme, so it is a must that you take every available safety precaution before you venture out on the water.

Which Alaska Commercial Fishing Permits Does Your Business Need?

Before you can head out on the Pacific from Anchorage or another Alaskan port, you are going to need to obtain the proper commercial fishing licenses. When you really consider the facts, it makes sense that commercial fishing is a fairly well-regulated industry. At a fundamental level, you are extracting a natural resource and selling it for profit. By issuing licenses and quotas, state and federal agencies are able to keep tabs on who is out on the water, as well as take measures to prevent overfishing. As an outdoors enthusiast, you surely understand the importance of preserving our waters for future generations of commercial fishermen to earn their livelihoods.

In order to determine which commercial fishing permits your business will need, you will first need to consider where you will be fishing in Alaska. If you are accessing inland waters or fishing in an area between zero and three nautical miles from shore, that will fall under state jurisdiction. For state waters, you will need to get your commercial fishing permits and endorsements from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Of course, if you are a commercial fisherman, you also have to go wherever the fish are biting, and that will likely bring you out to federal waters. Technically the area between three and 200 nautical miles out from shore, federal waters are governed and regulated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). As you can likely surmise, there is a lot of federal territory out on the ocean, so the NOAA simplifies things a bit by issuing permits by region. As Alaska is such a major commercial fishing hub and is home to a lot of territories, it has its very own region of NOAA permits. 

Getting the Permits You Need Online

At both the state and federal levels in Alaska, permits are offered on a species-specific basis. You can obtain permits for snow crabs, rockfish, halibut, salmon, and more. To get your licenses, you have a couple of available avenues. You can obtain paper applications from either the NOAA or the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. You can then ink these applications by hand and mail them in for processing. As a busy business owner, however, do you really have time for locating PDF files, downloading them, printing them out, filling them in, and then making a trip down to the post office?

At the Commercial Fishing Permits Center, we make it easy to get all the state and federal licenses that you need online. With our easy-to-read, fillable web forms, you can apply for your permits in just minutes. To learn more about how we can help you, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page, or contact one of our customer service agents by phone or email today.