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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 […]WK 29 Return Update
Returns of summer chum to NSRAA remote release sites through stat week 29 continues to be poor and all indications to date are that we will be at or well below the low range of our preseason summer chum forecast. Catches at Thomas Bay and SE Cove this past week, were weak with few boats at each site. The only positive indicator is that both sites are still running above 55% male but the combined cumulative catch to date of the two is less than 50k fish total. We continue to see a slow building of chum at Gunnuk Creek and yesterday was the first day NSRAA has had the fish ladder on and fish have made it up into the raceways. We anticipate beginning egg takes at Gunnuk Creek Tuesday this week. Our pre-season summer chum egg take goal at Gunnuk is 20 million eggs. I hope that our first egg take effort at Gunnuk Creek goes as smooth as possible and the recruitment up the creek to the hatchery is without issues.
Weekly test fishing has continued at Hidden Falls. Last week we saw our average catch per set drop from 300 per set to 150. This was discouraging for staff and the cost recovery vessel as we had several positive reports of large numbers of fish in the Hidden Falls THA. These estimates ranged from 40k to 200k in the entire THA. Such large variation in estimates makes it challenging to predict the overall strength of the return to date and make decisions on when we have sufficient brood stock. Earlier today (Monday) we initiated an additional test fishing effort and have observed quite a change in volume. The initial 5 sets averaged ~900 fish per set. Several additional sets were made to the south of Kasnyku Bay with some being quite large. Today’s test fishing effort puts us close to halfway through the cost recovery cap for the Hidden Falls test fishing. We are closely monitoring brood stock numbers to Hidden Falls and will likely make an additional test fishing effort later this week. There is growning indicators that the HF chum are returning from the south end of Chatham instead of the more recent trend of from the north. This is being seen in the Test Fishery data at Hawk Inlet, Pt Gardner and Kingsmill (data available at: https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5485 , with cost recovery/test set info at : https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5448) . Yesterday we began egg takes at Hidden Falls with a total pre-season goal of 140 million eggs. Once we are assured we have brood stock secured we will begin common property openings on any surplus.
Deep Inlet has really slowed this week and effort has dropped to very few boats of either net fleet. It looks like we just hit the low point of our pre-season forecast for summer chum at Deep Inlet and they are now sharply falling off the curve. We continue to see very few 5-year olds and the sex ratio has dropped to 39% male. There has been little sign of the fall chum showing up yet although the 5-year old percentage did tick up a few points from 1% week before to 4% of catch last week. Egg takes began Friday last week at Medvejie on the summer Hidden Falls stock chum with a little less than half of the 30k of what we need for brood visible in Bear Cove. Goal at Medvejie is 30 million summer stock chum.
Overall summer chum returns continue to be poor but it is looking better for brood at our 3 summer stock chum sites, Hidden Falls, Gunnuk Creek and Medvejie. This next week will be critical as we will have egg takes underway at all 3 facilities meeting egg take goals and balancing brood stock numbers between them as well.
Test Fisheries Statistics
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) conducts several test fisheries in Northern Southeast Alaska each year, as a means to assess pink and chum salmon abundance returning to the region. These test fisheries are conducted once per week by vessels contracted with the state, for a period of five to six weeks. NSRAA is interested in the origin of chum salmon intercepted in these test fisheries and cooperates with ADF&G and fish processors to collect otolith samples for each test fishery. Otoliths are read by both NSRAA and DIPAC and these preliminary results are used to make inferences of run strength and timing for various enhanced fisheries in the region.
2021 Test Fisheries: PAGE
WK 28 Return Update
Summer chum returns through Stat week 28 continue to be slow and are trending at or below the low range of the forecast at all of our sites. Historically this week (wk 29), would be the peak of the catch. Sex ratio data on the summer chum indicates we are following that historical timeline and the returns will be weak and less than forecast. We continue to see virtually no 5-year olds at any of our sites and the chum return is over 95% 4-year olds. Additionally the 4-year olds are small with a 6lb or less average.
While the test fisheries at Pt Gardner and Kingsmill are indicating a stronger chum catch than the recent 10-year long term average, we are not seeing this translate to increased catches at SE Cove or Thomas Bay yet. The first Pt Gardner test fishery was over 90% hatchery chum with greater than 55% being Hidden Falls bound, and ~10% for both Gunnuk Creek and Thomas Bay, with SE Cove making up about 5% of the catch. We are currently reading last weeks test fisheries chum otoliths and will post that information once it is available. Last week we did have a increase in the cost recovery catch at Gunnuk Creek (35k lbs) which is encouraging but still weaker than expected based on forecast. We have suspended cost recovery at Gunnuk this week to allow sufficient numbers for chum brood stock to build. We will still perform the Hidden Falls test fishing this Wednesday as we continue to monitor and gauge the strength of the return for brood stock to that facility.
On the Sitka side of Baranof, Deep Inlet chum are tracking near the low point of our return forecast with the sex ratio flipping to more females at the end of last week. We are seeing more summer chum at Medvejie and it looks like we will begin egg takes toward the end of this week. Current estimates are for ~7k chum in the area with a brood stock goal of 30k. This will be the second year of Hidden Falls summer chum egg takes at Medvejie. These eggs will be taken at Medvejie then transferred to Hidden Falls for release at SE Cove or Thomas Bay. Chinook returns to Medvejie continue to be strong and will certainly be above forecast. We are continuing with cost recovery as brood stock has been secured and fish continue to return to the cove. To date we have harvested over 1,000 Chinook for cost recovery from Bear Cove and they are still being picked up in Deep Inlet with over a 1,000 harvested there in week 28 between the two net fleets.
Fall chum have yet to show up at Deep Inlet and it is too early to gauge any information on how that return, or the Crawfish Inlet fall chum return, is going to shape up.
WK 27 Return Update
Summer chum returns to NSRAA projects through week 27 continue to be slow. Our forecasts on chum predicted few 5-year old chum and early returns are following the forecast with over 95% of the chum return so far being 4-year olds. Although week 27 did see an increase of chum catch across our sites, Deep Inlet had several moderate pulses of fish which is encouraging, we will need sustained recruitment to make our preseason forecast for the current stat week 28. Historically the peak catch of summer chum occurs in week 29 so we will need to see quite an increase this week and next to stay within our forecast. In week 27 the F/V Barbara harvested our first cost recovery chum returning to Gunnuk Creek hatchery to get an indication of run strength and age make up. We had a poor catch with less than 500 fish at 62% male, scales are currently being processed. There were reports of scattered jumps in the Gunnuk Creek SHA but there didn’t appear to be much volume under them. Last week the F/V Barbara also performed the first Hidden Falls test fishery of the season with a more encouraging 5 set average of 191 per set, 98% 4-year olds and 66% percent male . These set locations are spread throughout the Hidden Falls THA at South Pt., Cosmos, North Point, Waterfall and Pt. Turbot. An additional 4,000 fish were harvested within Kasnyku bay. The second test fishing event is occurring Wednesday at Hidden Falls with the second effort at Gunnuk Creek on Friday.
In contrast to the chum return, the Chinoook return to Sitka Sound looks like it will exceed the forecast of ~20,000. To date over 3,000 were caught in the spring troll fisheries, with tag data still to come in from that fishery. Undoubtedly more will be caught during the first summer troll opener as well. Additionally, over 4,000 have been caught in the Deep Inlet THA, while at Bear Cove we have taken over 500 for cost recovery and collected ~4,500 for brood stock. With brood stock secured, we will resume Chinook cost recovery efforts at Bear Cove on Thursday of this week, as we continue to see a good push of fish into the cove. Challenge will be harvesting the Chinook while minimizing capture of brood stock summer chum just beginning to show up.
On Tuesday this week the first Big Port Walter test fishing occurred. The F/V Christina Dawn is performing the test sets, with Sitka ADFG personnel taking care of sample collection. A total of 4 under 28″ Chinook and 3 sockeye were captured, with genetic samples collected and released alive. Additionally, a total of 7 pink salmon and 23 chum salmon were captured. NSRAA is currently processing the chum otoliths for a primary read with the secondary read being performed by the ADFG Otolith Lab in Juneau. There will be weekly fishing events through week 32. The results from this test fishing will be used by NSRAA and ADFG to evaluate the Big Port Walter location for a potential chum salmon release site.
Good luck fishing this week and lets hope the fish keep showing up.
2021 Cost Recovery and Carcass sale awardees
The following 2021 cost recovery and carcass contracts have been awarded at the close of the RFP period last week.
Chum Cost Recovery – Crawfish Inlet & West Crawfish Inlet – Silver Bay Seafoods
Chum Cost Recovery – Hidden Falls & Gunnuk Creek – OBI Seafoods
Chinook Cost Recovery – Bear Cove & Crawfish Inlet – Sitka Sound Seafoods
Coho Cost Recovery – Hidden Falls & Mist Cove – Trident Seafoods
Chum Carcasses – Hidden Falls – Silver Bay Seafoods
Chum Carcasses – Medvejie – Sitka Sound Seafoods
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