Friday June 30 Return Update
After a slow first 10 days of fishing at Hidden Falls things have begun to pick up. Yesterday (6/29) in the Thursday seine opening approximately 60k chum were harvested compared to a cumulative total of 25k for the previous 10 days. The 6/29 sample had a 6.5lb size avg, 67% male and the age structure of the return so far is relatively “normal” with the majority being age 4. . While this harvest increase gives us confidence that the return is tracking our forecast of 800k total return, the lines have been modified for Sundays (7/2) opener to provide more protection for brood...
Read MoreDeep Inlet/Bear Cove Closure
The Deep Inlet terminal harvest area will close to common property fishing at end of day Saturday (9/10) for chum and coho brood stock concerns at Medvejie Hatchery, and a likely shortfall of chum cost recovery from Crawfish Inlet. We are just over 50% complete on the fall chum egg take goal of 92 million at Medvejie and estimate that we may need an additional 5-10k fish for brood, depending upon additional recruitment, and final sex ratio. Additionally, the coho return to Bear Cove and Deep Inlet continue to perform below forecast. Bear Cove will close to retention of coho salmon at...
Read MoreSept 2-Return Update
Fall chum returns continue to taper after peaking over the past 2 weeks. Deep Inlet and Bear Cove returns are now a combined 112% of forecast and this week topped a total return of 2 million chum. The trollers continue on their record setting harvest and are now tantalizingly close to one million troll caught chum, between Deep Inlet and Crawfish Inlet returns, with a total of 970k chum harvested (820k DI & 150k CI). While the trollers have been in record setting territory for several weeks, breaking the million mark would be a historic milestone. Based upon the dwindling numbers of...
Read MoreAug 29th-Return Update
Cost recovery continues at Crawfish Inlet and we have approximately 42% left to harvest. We made good progress over Friday and Saturday at CI and harvested nearly 20% of the goal. The male sex ratio is holding high in the cost recovery samples and last sample taken from Saturdays harvest was 65% male. We have been seeing a high 3-year old percentage at CI and that is maintaining at 35% of the harvest in recent samples. We will continue cost recovery fishing at CI Monday (8/29) through Wednesday (8/31). It is very unlikely that there will be a Thursday seine opening for CI as the...
Read MoreAug 19th-Return Update
The Deep Inlet fall chum return continues to come in strong. The past rain event took the bite off for the trollers but they continue adding to their record breaking harvest. Trollers have harvested over 740k chums between Deep Inlet and Crawfish with 650k of that coming from Sitka Sound. The current stretch of nicer weather could help to improve the catch for the trollers. The catch and effort in West Crawfish picked up the last few days with over 35 boats fishing in West Crawfish Friday morning. This will likely be the peak week for Deep Inlet with a combined gear harvest of approximately...
Read More
RSS - Posts
Recent Comments