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Return Update-July 8th - NSRAA chum returns last week (stat week 27) seemed to flatline. There was minimal cost recovery completed in Deep Inlet and a moderate amount in SE Cove. The Hidden Falls chum weekly return last week took a slight dip to 50,000 from the previous stat week 26 return of 62,000. So far this week there […]
Return Update-June 25th - NSRAA chinook returns have been picking up the past several weeks with a total estimated harvest in Stat Week 25 of 1,341 adults. The spring chinook fisheries in the Sitka area have harvested over 2,000 Medvejie chinook making up 47% of the Sitka Sound area commercial troll harvest. Currently the return is looking like it […]
Gulf of Alaska Chinook Salmon do not warrant listing under Endangered Species Act - NOAA has concluded its 12-month scientific review to not list Chinook salmon in the Gulf of Alaska as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Action (ESA). PRESS RELEASE NMFS ESA Ruling
NSRAA Salmon Bake & Hatchery Tour - NSRAA will be offering hatchery tours and a BBQ lunch at Medvejie Hatchery on Saturday, June 27th. Lunch will consist of barbecued King Salmon, baked potato, green salad, rolls, watermelon and non-alcoholic drinks. Tickets are $15.00 per person- CASH ONLY and can be purchased during office hours at NSRAA- 1308 Sawmill Creek Road. (8-5 Mon-Fri) […]
Support Alaska Hatcheries at Board of Fisheries - Alaska Board of Fisheries Proposals. Your voice is needed. The board of fisheries will take up three hatchery proposals at the statewide meeting. Proposals 170, 171, and 172 seek to impose broad, preemptive reductions or moratoria on Alaska’s private nonprofit (PNP) salmon hatchery program without demonstrating a causal link between hatchery production and the specific […]August 5-Return Update
The big news this week is the tremendous success trollers targeting chum salmon in Sitka Sound are having. Effort and catch rates began increasing last week and have continued to increase this week. Last week trollers ended up harvesting over 70k chum salmon and are on track to potentially top 150k this week, with a combined harvest of approximately 200k chum so far this season. The 2021 season was a record chum harvest for trollers in Sitka Sound with just over 500k harvested. Last year through stat week 32 (current stat wk) trollers had harvested 17k chum. This year chum trollers in Sitka Sound have harvested over 200k chum and the stat week isn’t yet complete. There is every indication that the chum troll catch this season could be another record year.
While the chum troll catch at West Crawfish is not as impressive as the Sitka Sound troll harvest, we are still three times the catch for the same stat week as last year. It is estimated that over 20k will be harvested by the end of this week. There has been a fraction of the effort at West Crawfish with 10-15 boats daily fishing there compared to the 70 boats plus that have been fishing Sitka Sound. The poor weather coming in this weekend will likely push more effort to West Crawfish and we will likely see that catch pick up next week.
In addition to good early chum troll numbers in both Sitka Sound and West Crawfish, the catch per landing during the current week is ahead of last year. This indicates there is a large volume of chum in the region as typically the bite is better for the fleet during calm sunny conditions. We definitely have not had much of that weather recently. The current weather system will likely push some fish into Deep Inlet and we may start to see an increase in the net fleets harvest in Deep Inlet. It is hard to believe but the combined net harvest in Deep Inlet to date is 125k chum, which means the trollers have caught nearly double the catch of both net fleets. Eventually the large body will move into Deep Inlet but the current behavior of the fish is certainly working in the favor of the trollers.
While the fall chum return is just ramping up the summer return is rapidly winding down. On Thursday of this week staff completed the summer chum eggtake goal of 190 million eggs with the majority coming from Hidden Falls (170m), and the remainder from Gunnuk Creek and Medvejie Hatchery. The seine fleet was able to harvest over 130k chum returning to Hidden Falls this year. The highest net contribution since 2018. With a strong number of 3-year olds in the return this year it looks like next year will continue the trend of increasing survival rates from chum released at Hidden Falls. We also saw a similar number of 3-year olds in the SE Cove chum harvest this season. After an extremely slow and late start, the summer chum return turned out to beat our expectations. Let’s hope that trend continues with the fall chum return to Sitka Sound and Crawfish Inlet.
July 29th-Return Update
Chum returns to our inside summer sites appears to have peaked and is beginning to wind down. Catches this week will likely be about half of last week at Thomas Bay, SE Cove and Hidden Falls but all are on track to meet or exceed our pre-season forecast. A first for the inside sites in many years. While the summer chum return to Deep Inlet is winding down, the fall chum return continues to show strong early numbers. The Deep Inlet net catches for chum last week quadrupled from week prior with an 80% male sex ratio on seine, gillnet and troll samples and are track to at least double again this week. Vast majority of our most recent Sitka Sound troll caught chum are age 4’s with a mix of 45% Bear Cove, 45% Deep Inlet, and 10% Crawfish Inlet bound fish. Sitka Sound/Eastern Channel chum troll catch is starting to look like it may be the largest troll harvest for this stat week in the history of Deep Inlet chum releases. With a projected 50k plus harvest this week alone. I anticipate that the timing of the summer troll closure, combined with the good Sitka Sound troll harvest rate, will translate to substantial effort over the weekend. We are updating our data pages frequently to provide the most current information, here is a link to the Deep Inlet page ( https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=884 ).
Crawfish Inlet continues to be quiet, with no cost recovery effort or reported troll harvest. We will be taking a look at Crawfish Inlet this weekend with cost recovery and likely begin our Silver Bay brood stock management cost recovery early next week. We estimate around 10k fall chum brood have already made it back to Bear Cove, which is quite early for this large of a build. We will be performing a small harvest to collect sex ratio, and scale/otolith samples. This information is valuable to assist us in effectively managing the number of brood stock chum staging in Bear Cove. It is now clear that the fall chum return is early and/or going to be very large. Progression of catch over the next week will give us a better picture of the run strength but things are looking positive.
SOUTHEAST COVE – EXTENSION
The Southeast Cove Terminal Harvest Area (THA) season will be extended for one week through Saturday, August 6, 2022. The weekly gear group fishing rotations will remain effect for all gear groups (Sunday/Thursday for purse seine, Tuesday/Wednesday for drift gillnet, Monday/Friday/Saturday for troll).
See announcement here
July 22-Return Update
Returns this past week for summer chum salmon continue to increase to all our release sites. Yesterday (Thursday) there was the first opening at Hidden Falls for chum in several years. It appears the 2022 chum return to Hidden Falls will be the best since 2018. We continue to see a high proportion of Hidden Falls chum in the Point Augusta common property openings as well as the ADFG Point Gardner test fishing efforts. The last Point Gardner test fishing, on July 19th, continues to be above the long-term average for this time of year. SE Cove also continues to see a steady harvest of chum with the catch this week likely surpassing the 5-year average. It is beginning to look like we will come close to our forecasts for most of our inside summer chum salmon release sites.
At Hidden Falls this week we had another large increase in the average number of pounds of chum per set in the test fishing results. This increased our confidence in meeting our brood stock goal and limited opportunity was provided on Thursday. Currently we are 25% through the Hidden Falls chum egg take and still need another 150k adult chum to complete our egg take goal. Daily recruitment into the lagoon and up that ladder remain strong allowing for daily egg takes in the 7-10 million/day range. Hidden Falls will again open to seine this Sunday, July 24th, with a moderate increase in area. The THA from Greystone (Cosmos Pt) north and White Cliff south will be open. Please review the ADFG seine announcement for specific latitude lines. It is likely that additional open area will be provided next Thursday assuming brood stock recruitment maintains current daily rates.
In the last several days there has been an increase in catch at Deep Inlet on the early portion of the fall run chums. Additionally trollers have begun to target chum in the Eastern Channel and outer Sitka sound area. There were an estimated 30 working the area on Thursday with moderate success. We will be sampling this troll catch to ascertain origin of these chum. It is likely a majority will be bound for Bear Cove which is what we saw last year and the high survival of returning 3 year olds. To date most of the early fall run chum in Deep Inlet are age 4. It will be interesting to see how this return develops over the next week.
After a very disappointing first 3 weeks to the summer chum returns it is good to see the numbers approach forecast and provide some additional opportunity to the fleets.
July 15th-Return Update
This past week we have seen a large increase in chum harvest at all of our inside summer chum sites. This is very encouraging as up until this past week the chum catch had been substantially below forecast. Both SE Cove and Thomas Bay had a dramatic increase in catch this past week with more than a doubling of numbers and effort. On Tuesday we performed the 4th weekly Hidden Falls test fishing and saw a dramatic change from prior weeks with an average catch of 13,000lbs per set. Our current estimate is 10k adult chum inside the barrier net and we will begin spawning on Monday of next week. If we continue to see building of the chum volume in the inner bay, and corresponding building of volume offshore of Hidden Falls in the test fishing effort next week, it will indicate that our broodstock chum needs will likely be met. It is possible that a seine opening of a small portion of the Hidden Falls THA could occur in the last week of July. (Link to the Hidden Falls Test Fishing/CR fishing web page https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5448 )
Not only did we see a large increase in harvest at all our inside terminal areas, the Sunday, July 10th, Augusta seine opener and the July 12th Point Gardner test fishery saw large increases in chum harvest. The catch from this week at Gardner was more than double the recent 10 year average. We have read the July 10th Augusta chum otolith sample and a majority of those are bound for Hidden Falls, with smaller components bound for DIPAC, SE Cove and Thomas Bay. While the Hawk Inlet test fishery catch did not increase much last week the NSRAA portion of the chum increased ~10%. We are hoping to have the Gardner test fishing chum otolith sample data available early next week as a majority of these fish are likely bound for Hidden Falls. (Link to the NSRAA website with ADFG test fishing chum otolith information- https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5485 )
While chum returns on the inside have improved greatly the Deep Inlet chum return continues to be marginal but is coming in as predicted. There are signs that we are starting to see the early portion of the fall chum return in the Deep Inlet catch, with large, bright males starting to increase. We are also seeing a slight uptick in the male sex ratio and older aged chum in our weekly seine and gillnet otolith sampling. Historically the fall chum return begins to show up in larger numbers beginning at the end of July.
Lets hope these positive signs continue to develop over the weekend and into next week.
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