Salmon fishing has the most history and information than any other type of fishing in Alaska. Salmon fishing really got big in 1878 when the first salmon canneries opened. By 1900 over 85 per cent of the fish caught annually in Alaska were salmon. At the end of the nineteenth century 42 salmon canneries operated in Alaska. The ways that people caught salmon in the past is almost exactly the same way that people catch salmon today which is using gill nets and drag seines. One way that people used to catch salmon was the fish trap. The fish trap is a basket with a very small opening at one end that will let fish in to the basket but not out. Fish traps were outlawed by Alaskans in 1959 because fishermen could catch almost all the salmon in a stream with only a couple of traps.

Salmon, halibut and other deep sea fish, such as herring and crab, are all part of the commercial fishing industry. The commercial halibut and deep sea fishing industry began during the 1890's and by the early 1900's halibut accounted for about ten percent of fish caught in Southeast Alaskan waters. Crab, shrimp, and herring are not the biggest part of the fishing industry but they still are important. In the 1878 small herring operations caught and processed around 30,000 pounds of herring which was valued at about $900. In the 1880's Japanese commercial crab boats came to Alaskan waters. Only after World War II did Americans begin to fish commercially for crab in Alaska. In 1980 75 million pounds of crab were caught in Alaskan waters. By 1982 330 boats fished for crab in Kodiak and 118 fished for crab fished for crab in the Bering Sea.