Mixed fortunes on the Yukon

Zero Chinook salmon were reported sold on the Yukon River this summer, and the commercial harvest of nearly 531,000 chums was 79 percent above the recent five-year average.

That's the gist of this season summary from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

Salmon way up north

Kotzebue Sound hosts the farthest north commercial salmon fishery in Alaska. And the 2013 season opens tomorrow.

A good run of chum salmon is expected, and the harvest could reach 250,000 fish, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game says.

The buyer, Great Pacific Seafoods, is putting a strong emphasis on quality this season, requiring fishermen to bleed their catch.

More details here.

A new approach on the Yukon

Commercial fishermen will have a 12-hour shot Tuesday, from noon to midnight, to harvest summer chum salmon in District 1 on the Lower Yukon River.

What's really interesting about this opener is that fishermen can use only beach seines and dipnets, rather than the usual gillnets.

The Alaska Board of Fisheries acted this year to authorize the new, nonlethal gear types as a way to allow chum fishing without seriously impacting the expected poor Chinook run.

Fishermen using beach seines and dipnets will be required to release incidentally caught Chinook back to the water immediately, and alive.

"In the event that a Chinook salmon is killed by these gear types, the dead Chinook salmon must be recorded on a fish ticket and forfeited to the state," says this press release.

Yukon notches strong fall chum, coho catches

Here are highlights from a Department of Fish and Game summary of the 2011 fall salmon season on the Yukon River:

• The commercial harvest of 238,979 fall chum salmon was the largest since 1995.

• The commercial harvest of 76,303 coho salmon was the largest since 1991.

• All salmon were sold "in the round" and no salmon roe was sold separately.

• The ex-vessel value of the catch was an excellent $2.1 million, including $1.6 million for fall chum and $478,960 for coho.

• A total of 410 permit holders participated in the fishery.

'Politically dangerous'

Salmon seiners along the south Alaska Peninsula are sacrificing early fishing time rather than risk high chum bycatch while in pursuit of sockeye.

Here's a press release from the Aleutians East Borough.

Hatchery showdown in Cordova

Deckboss wishes he could be in Cordova tomorrow to hear all the hatchery talk.

The Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corp. (PWSAC), a private, nonprofit operator of some of the world's largest fish hatcheries, wants to make millions more salmon each year, which could mean millions more dollars for commercial fishermen.

The hatchery operator would create additional fish by upping its "egg take," raising more fingerlings for release into the sea. A year or three later, the adult salmon would return home, many to be captured in nets.

At 9 a.m. tomorrow in Cordova, a panel called the Prince William Sound Regional Planning Team will meet to consider the proposed expansion.

The planning team makes recommendations to Alaska's fish and game commissioner, who has the last word.

Going into the meeting, it looks bad for PWSAC.

Here's a 51-page memo from Department of Fish and Game biologists generally opposing the hatchery expansion.

Among other concerns, they say the straying of hatchery-born pink, chum and sockeye salmon into local streams already might "pose an unacceptable risk to wild salmon stocks."

They cite studies that found pink salmon display "competitive dominance," grabbing food such as zooplankton and squid and thus hurting other species of salmon from as far away as Bristol Bay and Puget Sound.

What's more, it appears juvenile hatchery pinks can prey on herring juveniles, helping retard recovery of Prince William Sound's famously depressed herring stocks.

"While this hypothesis needs to be explored with additional research, the rapid decline of herring stocks in PWS did occur shortly after a large ramp-up in production of hatchery pink salmon," the Fish and Game memo says.

Because large numbers of hatchery pinks and chums are "likely having a detrimental impact to wild stocks of salmon and herring," the department's research and management biologists are advising against increased production of these fish, which are the main hatchery species.

OK, so that's the Fish and Game perspective.

At the Regional Planning Team meeting, I expect we'll hear a considerably different perspective from PWSAC.

It'll also be interesting to hear where the commercial fishing industry stands on this. Most Alaska fishermen I know are mother hens when it comes to the health of wild salmon stocks.

According to PWSAC, the time is right to boost production.

"The global salmon market has been steadily expanding over the past several years and Prince William Sound's local processing capacity has increased significantly on numerous fronts," PWSAC said in permit alteration requests to Fish and Game.

The operator said fish resulting from the proposed expansion "should be easily absorbed" in the marketplace.

State, federal agencies study Yukon water quality

Here's a press release from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation about an effort to assess water quality and habitat along 550 miles of the Yukon River.

This seems like important stuff considering the weak returns of not only king salmon this season, but reportedly fall chum as well.