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.

Salmon notes

• The North Pacific Fishery Management Council has set a total allowable catch of 1,487,153 sockeye for this year's Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone salmon fishery. That's well above last year's 800,126 sockeye.

• In legislative action in Juneau, the Senate Resources Committee yesterday held a hearing on Senate Bill 158. Sponsored by Sen. Jesse Bjorkman, R-Nikiski, the bill would segregate eastside Cook Inlet setnet permits into their own district separate from the rest of the inlet. The sponsor says this would help the setnetters — who have been mostly shut down in recent years to conserve scarce Chinook salmon — pursue relief such as a buyback of permits. Video of the hearing is available here and is well worth watching.

• Circle Seafoods, of Aberdeen, Washington, announced plans for the upcoming salmon season: "In partnership with the Metlakatla Indian Community, Circle plans to operate on Annette Island during the 2026 salmon season. The Circle I barge, with a daily production capacity of 500,000 pounds and 1M pounds of salmon tank capacity, is expected to moor at the city dock in Metlakatla and buy fish off the port side." The company posted a video of its rapid slush ice delivery system. Circle debuted its newly built processing barge last year at Metlakatla.

Cook Inlet notes

Here are a couple of items concerning salmon management in the Cook Inlet Exclusive Economic Zone.

• Anchorage federal Judge Sharon Gleason has dismissed a driftnetter lawsuit challenging the 2024 federal takeover of salmon fisheries in the EEZ. Here's the judge's 32-page decision and order.

• Eugenio Piñeiro-Soler, head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, is chiding the North Pacific Fishery Management Council for advising it doesn't intend to recommend catch limits for the 2026 Cook Inlet EEZ salmon fishery.