Saturday, December 10, 2011

Stikine River king salmon bounce back

Looks like Southeast Alaska commercial fishermen next spring will get a crack at those gorgeous Stikine River king salmon.

For the first time since 2008, the state is forecasting a run large enough to support a fishery.

The U.S. allowable catch under the forecast is 5,890 large Stikine kings.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

what about the taku and chilkat rivers.we haven't seen hardly any kind of rebound of kings on these two rivers and i don't expect too?now that we have a new dog salmon troll fishery on homeshore in icy straits, which is killing off between 3 and 4 thousand juvenial kings a day during the peak of the dog salmon run!I think all trollers should be concerned about these directed fisheries and take a serious look at the pros and cons!

Anonymous said...

Man your full of jelly fish.That fishery only really started in 2011.So get real.If you have genuine concerns talk to people involved.Its a new fishery for that area which will and certainly has some growing pains to deal with.

Unknown said...

Here is the deal on the chum salmon troll fishery. ADF&G estimates 240 legal Chinook caught by trollers targeting chums in Icy Strait in June of 2011. If you accept the Department estimates then then that means over 600 chums per legal Chinook in the chum troll fishery.
If you figure a comparable rate of sub-legal to legal Chinook in the chum troll fishery as in the targeted Chinook fishery in Icy Strait from troll log book records of a few years ago, which would be a stretch but is the best data we have presently, you are looking at about 150 or so encounters of sub-legal Chinook by the chum troll fleet in Icy Straits in June 2011.
I and other trollers have worked extensively with ADF&G and others on troll by-catch issues. The best data and troll experience indicates chum trolling as an exceptionally clean fishery.
That might be part of the reason why the Joint Regional Planning team for SE enhanced salmon, which includes two gillnetters, unanimously approved a proposal for chum trolling in Icy Straits last Thursday.
Actually, some of us have been trolling chums in Icy Straits since the 70's. It is the catching that has improved.

Anonymous said...

maybe the gillnetters are leading you into the Lions Den?

Anonymous said...

yes the catching has improved for the dogs you have been fishing since the 70's.but they are most all hatchery dogs!wheres the wild stock of dogs cohos are kings all three these wild runs are no where near what they use to be including the berners river run of coho or the excursion inlet run of fall dogs!