ELLSWORTH — If you heard a whooshing sound at noon today it was probably a collective sigh of relief from local Marine Patrol officers marking the close of the 2012 elver fishing season.

Last year, Maine dealers reported elver landings of 8,585 pounds. At an average price of $891.48 per pound, the total value of the catch was just over $7.6 million.

This year, the average price for elvers has stayed well above $2,000 per pound. Fishermen and dealers regularly reported that the going rate was as high as $2,200 or even $2,300 per pound.

With dealers paying unprecedented prices, virtually every one of Maine’s 407 licensed elver fishermen were hard at work, harvesting the tiny juvenile eels with dip nets and from fyke nets stretching from the bank out into the state’s streams and rivers. All evidence is that the harvest this year has been good, with warm water encouraging the early arrival of the elvers in Downeast waters.

That bodes well for the harvesters. If landings were the same as last year — the Department of Marine Resources has not yet released any landings figures — an average price of $2,100 per pound would mean fishermen harvested some $18 million along with their glass eels.

For more maritime news, pick up a copy of The Ellsworth American.