Return Update-August 19th

Deep Inlet

Last week a total of 276,000 chum salmon returned to Deep Inlet. The majority of the harvest, 156,000, occurred in the pink salmon seine fishery in Eastern Channel. Troll harvest in Sitka Sounds also increased last week with approximately 60,000 chum harvested by 67 troll permit holders. An additional 35,000 chum were harvested for cost recovery. Seine, troll and cost recovery samples all indicated a greater than 50% male sex ratio with troll coming in the highest at 64%.

So far this week an estimated 80,000 chum have been harvested for cost recovery, bringing our progress to 80% of our cost recovery goal as of Tuesday afternoon. Cost recovery will resume Friday August 22 and there is a strong likelihood that the cost recovery goal will be met this coming weekend. A Deep Inlet THA reopening announcement will be issued as soon as the cost recovery goal is met. There will likely be a modified schedule for the first week of the reopening to maintain a 1:1 net ratio between seine and gillnet.

Crawfish Inlet

To date Crawfish Inlet has produced minimal chum cost recovery harvest. There are reports of chum outside of the Crawfish Inlet SHA in the Cedar Pass and Walker/Middle Channel areas. West Crawfish Inlet has not produced any troll harvest to date this season. West Crawfish Inlet will be open this Thursday for pink salmon seine harvest but as of today there does not appear to be large volumes of chum present. Next cost recovery harvest in Crawfish Inlet will be on Friday, August 22.

Coho

Coho harvest continues to remain steady but at a reduced rate from previous weeks. To date a total of 30,000 NSRAA coho have been harvested in troll and sport fisheries. The first coho cost recovery effort of the season was conducted at Mist Cove and Hidden Falls yesterday, Monday the 18^th, with approximately 9,000lbs harvested at each site. While not a large cost recovery harvest this is one of the earlier starts to coho cost recovery for those sites.