Salmon notes

We're having a banner salmon season, led by a blockbuster catch of pink salmon.

The statewide harvest now exceeds 211 million fish. Here's a chart showing the catch of each species and the preseason forecast.

Salmon species	Catch forecast	Catch to date
Chinook	253,534	301,000
Sockeye	34,260,000	28,902,000
Chum	22,748,000	15,889,000
Pink	117,822,000	163,516,000
Coho	3,904,000	2,484,000
TOTAL	178,987,534	211,093,000

Here are a few notes as the season enters the stretch run.

• A record 77.6 million pinks have been taken in Prince William Sound. This includes 74.1 million in the general seine fishery and 3.5 million in hatchery cost recovery fisheries. Based on run timing, state biologists project a final catch of 90.9 million.

• Seiners in Southeast Alaska also are setting records for weekly catches of pink salmon. Fishery managers say the final tally could top 70 million.

• Alaska's all-species commercial salmon harvest has exceeded 200 million fish four times (1995, 1999, 2005 and 2007). The all-time record harvest was 221.9 million in 2005.