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Some 347,000 pounds of live geoducks have been shipped from 14 commercial fishing areas around Ketchikan, Prince of Wales Island and Sitka.

"Overall it was a very good fishery," said Julie Decker, executive director of the Southeast Alaska Regional Dive Fisheries Association. "Basically, it was the best for live product since the (geoduck) fishery started in Southeast."

Shipping more live geoducks was the reason this year's harvest was so profitable, Decker said.

"(The new testing protocol) basically allowed us to triple the value of the fishery," Decker said. "We're pretty happy about that."

This season marked the start of a new paralytic shellfish poisoning testing program in place that ensured that most of the available harvest quota could be shipped live.

Shipping geoducks live is more profitable than processing the clams. The result for fishermen was a tripling of value over the 2002-2003 season, when the mix of processed and live shipments was more even.

Because Vallenar Bay hasn't passed testing for paralytic shellfish poisoning, the geoducks harvested there must be shipped processed instead of live.

Kristin Ryan, director of the state Department of Environmental Conservation's Division of Environmental Health, said the new protocol was a success.

The protocol will continue next season with a few changes, which include a requirement for two samples to open a fishing area instead of three, Ryan said.

Another change will be the hiring of one testing coordinator position by DEC for the season rather than two separate industry and DEC coordinators.

The 2003-2004 season started on Dec. 7 with the opening of the Steamboat Bay area off the west coast of Prince of Wales Island. The largest number of harvest divers participating in any given fishing period was 46 divers in January.