Salmon notes

Here are a few highlights from Alaska's young salmon season.

• The statewide, all-species catch stands at about 14 million fish. The forecast calls for a harvest of 133 million salmon for the year.

• Sockeye is the dominant catch so far, totaling more than 11 million.

• In Southeast Alaska, trollers have taken more than 36,150 Chinook salmon in the spring fishery.

• Copper River gillnetters already have exceeded their season forecast of 1.6 million sockeye.

• The action is starting to pick up at Bristol Bay, scene of Alaska's flagship salmon fishery. Gillnetters on Friday landed a monster haul of nearly 2.7 million sockeye, bringing the season tally to 6.8 million. The state has forecast a catch of 16.9 million sockeye for the year.

• On the Lower Yukon River, commercial fishermen using dipnets and beach seines have caught about 600,000 chum salmon, with nearly 4,800 Chinook reported caught and released.

Herring notes

Here's an update on various herring fisheries around the state, as compiled from Department of Fish and Game announcements this morning.

• The Kodiak herring harvest stood at about 2,500 tons.

• At Togiak in remote Southwest Alaska, scene of the state's largest herring fishery, the harvest tally was 16,951 tons. Nearly 11,000 tons remain on the preseason quota.

• A good bit of herring is available farther north in the Kuskokwim Bay, Nelson Island and Cape Romanzof areas. But the fish likely will go unharvested due to "lack of industry interest," with no processors registered to buy.

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.

Salmon notes

Here are a few highlights from the ongoing Alaska salmon season.

• The statewide all-species catch now exceeds 120 million fish, the Department of Fish and Game reports. The forecast for the full season is 179 million.

• The pink salmon fishery is really rocking. In Southeast Alaska, indications point to a purse seine harvest of 60-70 million pinks, well above the state's preseason forecast of 54 million.

• In Prince William Sound, seiners bagged 35.6 million pinks through July 31, a record total for the date.

• The Norton Sound chum salmon harvest has again topped 100,000 fish, with another 130,000 taken at Kotzebue. "Hopefully, there will be enough flights in and out of Kotzebue to keep up with the good catches coming in," the department said Friday.

• We're now seeing coho catches pick up around the state. Coho generally are the latest arriving of the five commercially harvested Pacific salmon species.

Salmon notes

We're now smack in the middle of Alaska's commercial salmon season. Here are a few observations.

• The statewide all-species catch stands at nearly 89 million fish, or roughly half the preseason forecast of 179 million.

• Harvest of the state's most valuable salmon crop, sockeye, is nearly done, and the catch is likely to end up short of forecast. The tally of 27.8 million fish is well short of the projected 34.3 million.

• We're entering prime time for pink salmon purse seiners. Prince William Sound boats already have taken nearly 25 million pinks, while Southeast Alaska seiners have bagged 15 million. The statewide forecast calls for a big haul of nearly 118 million pinks this year.

• Kodiak has taken nearly 5.5 million salmon of all species so far, including a strong 1.9 million sockeye.

• The Lower Yukon River summer chum salmon fishery is over, and the catch of about 378,000 fish is the highest since 1989, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports. During the fishery, 928 Chinook salmon were caught and released and 436 Chinook were reported kept but not sold.

Salmon notes

Here are a few observations from the Alaska salmon season thus far.

• The Department of Fish and Game reports a total salmon harvest, all species, of 34.9 million fish. The forecast for the full season is 179 million.

• Sockeye account for more than half the catch at 20.3 million fish. We'll likely see pink salmon rise to the top the tally board later in the season.

• In Upper Cook Inlet, eastside setnetters have had four openers, taking 113,864 sockeye and 271 Chinook through the Fourth of July. The setnetters were largely shut down last season due to Chinook bycatch concerns.

• It's pretty clear now we'll finish with a lackluster catch this year at Bristol Bay, with the peak of the sockeye fishery now past. The catch stands at just over 13 million fish, on a preseason forecast of 16.6 million. No word yet on what processors intend to pay fishermen.

• On the Lower Yukon River, the new dipnet and beach seine fishery seems to have worked out well. The commercial chum catch through through July 3 was 203,835 fish, with 837 Chinook released. See our previous post for background on this fishery.

Salmon notes

Lots of salmon fisheries are open around Alaska, but the statewide catch remains modest at this point.

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports about 2.9 million fish have been taken so far, on a preseason forecast of 179 million.

Here are a few notes on the young season:

• Southeast trollers have landed 11,847 Chinook, which trails last year's catch by 27 percent for this date. The bright side: Prices are very strong at an average of $6.91 per pound, and average fish weight is up by half a pound to 13.3 pounds.

• At the Copper River, gillnetters finally got a couple of openers last week, after enduring a 13-day closure to allow inriver passage to improve. The sockeye harvest stands at an excellent 843,000 fish, and the district will open again at 7 a.m. Monday for a 36-hour period.

• At Chignik, on the Alaska Peninsula, early reports indicate the number of permits fishing this season will be the highest since 2005. Chignik has a significant sockeye run.

• Early season catches have been characteristically low at Bristol Bay, scene of the world's largest sockeye fishery. We likely won't see the action heat up there until early July. Managers on Friday allowed a five-hour fishery targeting Chinook in the Nushagak District.

• The Yukon River Chinook run is expected to be weak again this year, so no commercial fishery targeting those wonderful kings is expected.

Some herring notes

A fine mess of Togiak herring. Tim Sands photo

 

As previously reported, the Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery was less than fulfilling this year. The harvest came in at less than half the preseason quota of 11,549 tons.

Deckboss hears reliably that processors advanced $500 a ton. We'll see if the market pushes that higher.

Sitka, of course, is just the start of herring season around Alaska. Several other fisheries are either under way or soon will be.

In Southeast Alaska, for example, 83 permit holders recently took part in a spawn-on-kelp fishery at Ernest Sound.

At Kodiak, purse seiners and gillnetters are prosecuting the local sac roe herring fishery.

In May, the action will shift to the remote village of Togiak, in Bristol Bay. This historically has been the scene of the largest herring fishery by volume in the state.

Togiak once was highly competitive, with scores of boats and processors operating under the direction of a small air force of spotter planes.

Today, the fishery is a much more leisurely affair, as the traditional Japanese market for herring roe simply isn't what it used to be.

A very large quota of 30,056 tons is available for this year's Togiak sac roe fishery. Details in this announcement from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

A great deal of herring also will be up for grabs in the Arctic-Yukon-Kuskokwim region along Alaska's western coast.

Coastal Villages Region Fund has announced it intends to pay fishermen a base price of $350 per ton this year for AYK herring.