That’s what some commercial seine fishermen in Sitka scooped out of the water on Wednesday — in the form of fatty, silvery Pacific herring.

The Sitka sac roe herring fishery is already legendary for netting megabucks in minutes, but that day’s catch was still a shocker — for fishermen, regulators and seafood processors.

Expecting healthy numbers of spawning fish, state biologists are allowing seiners to harvest a record-breaking amount of herring in Southeast Alaska’s Sitka Sound this year — 14,723 tons.

But in just two stunning hauls on Wednesday afternoon, the fishermen netted more than 10,000 tons of fish — most of their quota.

At a price of $550 per ton of herring, that was at least a $5.5 million day.

via