A big snow crab harvest kept Bering Sea fishermen hard at work through the holidays. Now, it’s overshadowing the start of a major groundfish season, too. 

The Pacific cod fishery kicked off in the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands this month. There’s about 250,000 metric tons of Pacific cod up for harvest in state and federal waters.

Federal biologist Krista Milani says normally, pot-gear vessels over 60 feet finish cod before the end of January. But many started this year focused on snow crab -- meaning cod season will probably run long.

"So normally we’ve got about three times as many vessels as what we’ve got participating this year, so far," Milani says.

Fishermen didn’t take much time off from snow crab in December, and they’re well ahead of schedule now. State area management biologist Heather Fitch says the fleet has taken about 10 percent of their 68 million-pound quota, with months of fishing left to go -- and no problems with sea ice so far.

"The ice is way, way, way up," Fitch says, "which I guess isn’t surprising, considering how warm it’s been around here with no snow on the ground in January."

So cod’s taking a backseat for pot-gear boats. Meanwhile, the fixed-gear fleet should finish cod early next month. After that, a smaller state fishery can open around Unalaska, with 18 million pounds of cod for pot vessels under 58 feet.

This is only the second year for that fishery. Fitch says it had a good start in 2014.

"I think you would call it successful," she says. "We had a total of 17 boats, no more than about 10 at a time though. It opened in mid-February, and then kind of managed itself within one percent of the quota."

Last year, that fishery finished by mid-spring -- leaving plenty of time for enterprising fishermen to get back to snow crab, which runs through May.