Kodiak, AK – The names of two people who died when the fishing vessel Ocean Challenger capsized Wednesday have been released, but the search continues for Kodiak resident Steve Esparza, who was a crewmember of the boat.

The deceased are listed as 51-year-old David Hafflequist of Hoonah, the skipper of the Ocean Challenger, and 26-year-old Walter Foster of Westport, Washington, a crewmember aboard the boat.

Unalaska, AK – Two more processors have reached agreements with fishermen on a king crab price this afternoon, sending more boats out to the Bering Sea fishing grounds.

Negotiators for the crab harvesting cooperatives say that Trident Seafoods and Peter Pan Seafoods have both offered a price that they consider reasonable. Although that price hasn't been posted yet, the three other processors who met the co-ops' terms are paying an advance price of $3.65 a pound for Bristol Bay red king crab.

Unalaska, AK – The U.S. Coast Guard is looking for a missing crew member from a fishing vessel that capsized 60 miles south of Sand Point in the North Pacific this morning.

A Coast Guard cutter, C-130 aircraft and helicopter are still searching the area where the Ocean Challenger went down, and three of the four crew members have been recovered. Petty Officer Eric Chandler said that few further details were available at the moment.

Unalaska, AK – An Unalaska man's truck had to be lifted out of Iliuliuk River with a crane after its brakes failed yesterday afternoon.

The Ford Bronco rolled into the river opposite the Alyeska Seafoods processing plant at 3:45 in the afternoon and was completely submerged. The driver managed to climb out the window and flag down a nearby state trooper, who was checking fishing licenses along the river. Alyeska employees were able to pull the truck back onto dry land using a crane.

Unalaska, AK – Most Bering Sea crab fishermen are still refusing to leave Dutch Harbor to drop pots, as negotiations between their harvesting cooperatives and crab processors made little headway today.

Although most processing company representatives were either unavailable or unwilling to comment on the negotiations this afternoon, co-op representatives said that a third processing company, Ocean Beauty, agreed to raise their advance price to $3.65, which Alyeska and Westward Seafoods have already offered. But four processors are still asking for a lower price, which the co-ops say they won't accept.

Unalaska, AK – Crab processors and crab harvesting cooperatives failed to reach an agreement on a fair Bristol Bay red king crab price Monday afternoon, prolonging a stand-down by most of the Bering Sea crab fleet. KIAL's Charles Homans has the story in Unalaska.

Unalaska, AK – Although the Bering Sea king crab season opened at noon on Sunday, most of the fishing fleet still hasn't left Dutch Harbor. That's because, as of this afternoon, crab harvesting cooperatives and crab processors haven't agreed on the price of king crab. KIAL's Charles Homans has the story in Unalaska.

Unalaska, AK – It's that time of year again in Dutch Harbor--the 2006-2007 season for most of the Bering Sea crab fisheries opens at noon on Sunday.

Eighty-nine vessels are registered for Bristol Bay red king crab this season and similar numbers for bairdi and opilio crab. That's the same number of crab boats as last year, when crab rationalization took effect and individual fishing and processing quotas replaced the legendary derby in the Bering Sea. But it's barely a third of the number of boats that fished for red king crab in 2004, and a study by University of Alaska economics professor Gunnar Knapp that was released in May estimated that more than 1,200 fishing jobs were lost in the transition to a rationalized fishery.

Unalaska, AK – The weekly fisheries roundup with city natural resource analyst Frank Kelty.