A subpar season in Bristol Bay

Well, we're now well past the traditional season peak at Bristol Bay, and the catch stands at a fairly dreadful 13.7 million salmon.

Coming into the season, the state had forecast a weak harvest of 16.6 million sockeye. Now it appears unlikely gillnetters will be able to scratch up enough fish to meet even that modest projection.

And so, Deckboss imagines the docks, canneries and bars in Naknek, Dillingham and elsewhere are becoming more lonely by the hour as folks head home.

I'm guessing no one is more dejected than the setnetters at the Igushik River, where persistent fuel leakage from the sunken fish tender Lone Star has kept the fishery in that area closed for days now.

Still no word on the base price processors are paying fishermen this season. Anyone heard anything?

Bristol Bay gets going

Out in Bristol Bay, scene of the world's biggest sockeye salmon run, we're starting to see the commercial harvest pick up.

The cumulative catch has now topped 5 million fish, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game reports.

You can track the daily tally here.

The fishery historically has peaked around the Fourth of July.

The catch forecast for this season is a relatively modest 16.6 million sockeye.

Salmon season update

Bristol Bay gillnet boats line up to deliver their sockeye salmon catches to tender vessels. Jack Molan photo

We're approaching the halfway mark of the 2012 salmon season. Here are a few highlights from the action thus far:

• The statewide catch as of Friday, all species, totaled more than 22.2 million fish. The state predicts 132.1 million for the season.

• The harvest tally typically doesn't really mount up until the pink salmon hordes show up, and that hasn't happened yet. Only 428,000 pinks have been taken thus far.

• The state's main money fish is sockeye, and some areas are seeing good results. Bristol Bay gillnetters last week enjoyed day after day of big catches, and through Saturday the harvest was 14.9 million, or more than two-thirds of the preseason forecast. Copper River fishermen have taken 1.6 million sockeye — outstanding.

• In Upper Cook Inlet, poor king salmon returns to the Kenai River are hurting sockeye fishermen. The state Department of Fish and Game is closing down setnetters today. The idea is to let Kenai kings pass through.

• In Southeast Alaska, the general summer troll season that opened July 1 closes to retention of king salmon at midnight tonight. That's when the target harvest of 98,135 kings is expected to be reached. Fish and Game says it counted 548 troll vessels during aerial surveys.

• Commercial fishing has begun way up in Norton Sound, but it's a weird year. "The large amount of ice in Norton Sound this winter is thus far resulting in the latest runs of salmon observed in decades," Fish and Game reports.