Tuesday, August 4, 2026

Salmon notes

• The Bristol Bay sockeye season is all but over, and the catch is 29.7 million fish. That's a decent tally but well short of the state's preseason forecast of 32.3 million. The Egegik and Nushagak districts led the way this year with each producing a catch of just over 9 million sockeye.

• Elsewhere around Alaska, lagging catches of chum and pink salmon are causing considerable worry. Statewide, the chum harvest was down 61 percent from 2025, and the pink catch was down by more than 90 percent in Prince William Sound and Southeast Alaska compared to 2024, a historically low year in those regions, McKinley Research Group reported today for the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute.

• The National Marine Fisheries Service is prohibiting commercial fishing for salmon in the Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone, effective at 7 a.m. tomorrow. The action is necessary to conserve coho, the agency says. Here are the latest Cook Inlet EEZ catch totals.
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2 comments:

  1. DeckbossAugust 6, 2026 at 6:06 PM

    Due to the paucity of salmon, Silver Bay Seafoods has gone ahead and wrapped up its Valdez processing operations for the season, the company's Abby Fredrick tells us.

    "We are still buying fish in Prince William Sound and these fish are currently being processed in our Seward facility," she says.

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  2. DeckbossAugust 6, 2026 at 8:48 PM

    Even before the season began, Silver Bay had indicated it wouldn't be processing at Cordova due to low salmon forecasts in PWS.

    https://deckboss.blogspot.com/2026/02/significant-news-from-silver-bay.html

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