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| Million Dollar Moment |
 With fuel prices seemingly ever increasing, it would be a dream to be able to make half a million dollars in an hour on your boat. For some fisherman in Sitka, Alaska, that dream came true. On Wednesday, April 26, a group of commercial fishermen pulled enough fatty Pacific herring from the water to comfortably boat for quite some time.
Expecting a healthy level of the spawning herring this year, regulators upped the amount of fish that could be commercially brought in to a record 14,723 tons. In two hauls on Wednesday afternoon, the fishers almost broke their quote, snaring 10,000 tons of the fish in the 30 minute opening of fishing.
Weighing in at $550 a ton, that means they raked in $5.5 million. "For those of us in the area," Chip Treinen told the Anchorage Daily News, "we were like kids in a candy store."
The massive hauls came as a result of the herring's choice of spawning area. Dense schools of the fish chose shallow waters, about three fathoms, to spawn and, as a result, could not dive to escape the nets.
Concern grew over seafood processors having the capabilities to process that many herring in a short period of time. Extra work and coordination was required and some of the herring had to be sent to Canada to be processed.
The total amount of money earned in the first day of fishing exceeded 2007's gross earning. Fifty permit holders earned $3.8 million last year, catching 8,320 tons of herring at a price per ton $465. The highly sought after permits cost about $283,000 this year and a net for catching the herring runs $50,000.
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