It’s been a bang-up winter for cod boats.

The latest sector to wrap up their season is the 60-foot-and-under pot boats. They closed on Friday, a full three weeks earlier than last year. Twenty-one vessels participated this year, and they brought in over 14 million pounds of cod at a much faster rate than usual, despite having a larger quota.

Krista Milani is a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, and she says that a lot of boats were able to shorten their trips from three days to just two.

“People were definitely pulling up a lot of fish per pot, more than they have in previous years. So the fishing overall was pretty good,” says Milani. “Another thing that happened is that the vessels that came out to participate this year were more efficient.”

Don Goodfellow at Alyeska Seafoods says that a faster turnaround for boats is good for everyone involved. If vessels are taking less time to catch the fish, it means that the product is fresher and that boats can spend less money on fuel.

Goodfellow adds that the prices for cod are better this year, too. Pot boats are getting 39 cents per pound for their larger fish, and 28 cents for smaller fish. Last year, they were getting six cents less for both. He thinks that might be attributable to high prices for halibut. As halibut becomes more expensive, restaurants and consumers are more likely to want to use cod as a substitute.

Cod fishing for other gear types has gone well, too. The catcher processors wrapped up their season in three weeks, and the trawl fishery is expected to close up next week.

The rapid pace of fishing might have even been too fast for one sector. The over-60 pot boats took their quota during the first half of January, before switching to snow crab. But when extreme ice conditions made it impossible to harvest snow crab, the pot boats were unable to switch back to cod. As a result, many crews left Unalaska to wait for the sea ice to recede.

Fishermen are allowed to harvest 575 million pounds of Pacific cod this year, a 15 percent increase over last year.