Looking up at Chignik

The remote Southwest Alaska fishery at Chignik saw a catch of nearly 1.1 million sockeye this year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports.

That's a decent tally after five dreadful seasons of producing as few as zero sockeye.

Through its history, Chignik has yielded on occasion more than 2 million sockeye annually, and in 1999 actually cleared 3.1 million.

The fishing fleet was small this season, with 35 active permits, and the sockeye catch paid about $3.85 million ex-vessel, the department said. Other species including pink salmon added almost $1.3 million, bringing value per permit to $146,491.