Here are a few highlights from Alaska's young salmon season.
• The action is starting to pick up at Bristol Bay, where gillnetters had landed 2.6 million sockeye through Monday. The season forecast calls for a bumper harvest of 37.6 million fish, so we could see the bay explode in the next few days as the fishery peaks. Track the daily catch here.
• In Southeast Alaska, the chum salmon return to the Hidden Falls Hatchery has been a huge disappointment.
• At the Copper River, gillnetters have caught just over 1.2 million sockeye and 22,492 Chinook. The preseason forecast called for 2.24 million sockeye and 6,000 Chinook.
• At Chignik, it appears about 50 seine permit holders are taking part in the fishery, down a bit.
• On the Lower Yukon River, chum fishermen are again restricted to dipnets and beach seines instead of gillnets. This allows for the safe release of scarce Chinook.
• Way up north at Kotzebue, commercial salmon fishing is expected to open July 10. At this point, however, the area has only one confirmed buyer compared to three last year.
Alaska commercial fishing news and notes
About me
- Deckboss
- I'm a journalist covering Alaska's commercial fishing industry. My real name is Wesley Loy. Reach me at wloy61@gmail.com.
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3 comments:
The Chignik early sockeye run has been a failure and current harvest is less than 150k---- interception by Area M fishermen of Chignik bound sockeye have added to the poor Chignik terminal harvest. Further fish size is a mere 5.3 lb average; typically average size is 6.8 -7.2 lbs. "Down a bit"--- more accurate would be that the Chignik fishery has been "a disaster to date."
It seems Bristol Bays forecast will not happen, last years catch was way ahead of this years, and if the fish come all at once, the processors will have limits.
On the Copper the harvest of 1.2 million reds by June 29th is respectable especially when you consider the escapement is at 950,000 with a maximum in river escapement goal for this date of 475,000, so add the 475,000 over escapement to the catch, and the run did happen just that by closing the inside for most of the year, fish and game let the run go up the river. Still have all of July for catching reds and more over escapement. The Kings are back on the Copper however, to catch 22,000 with the primary King areas closed is Huge.
http://www.adn.com/article/20150701/bristol-bay-s-predicted-huge-sockeye-run-slow-get-going
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