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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 […]September 11 Update – Crawfish continues to surprise
The Crawfish Inlet Chum project continues to surprise with decent numbers of chum still moving into the area. Catch for the Thursday/Friday opening looks to be strong and will likely approach 100k. We have now exceeded 1 million total return to the project and it looks as it may top out over 1.2 million chum or around 80% of forecast, which is significantly better than any other NSRAA chum project this year. While the seine fleet numbers have dwindled, the remaining boats are able to add a little income to what will be the worst year for the seine fleet in decades. Openings are scheduled to continue Thur/Fri and Sunday through Sept 25th.
Chum returns to Medvejie/Bear Cove continue to look weak. To date we have gone through 45k chum brood stock and have taken a total of 40 million eggs leaving another 62 million to go. So far 3 year olds are making up 60% of the hatchery rack return. Sex ratio at the hatchery rack has averaged 60% male for the first two weeks of the egg take which further slows egg collection efforts. Starting Monday we will begin capturing and moving chum brood stock from Deep Inlet to Bear Cove. Current plan is to move approximately 20k adults Monday through Wednesday. We will then assess remaining brood and egg needs at Bear Cove to determine if additional brood capture is necessary. By Wednesday of next week we should be 60% complete on our fall chum egg take at our current rate. As of Thursday chum numbers at the head of Deep Inlet were by no means overwhelming and estimated at 5-10k fish. There are no plans to reopen Deep Inlet as remaining brood stock needs will likely utilize the remainder of the return.
Finally, it looks like we will have a few days of sunny weather in a row which will hopefully help all of our dispositions in an all around very gloomy year.
September 2nd update-Deep Inlet Closure
NSRAA has requested that ADFG close Deep Inlet to all common property fisheries beginning end of day Saturday, April 5th, after troll day. We continue to have concerns that sufficient brood stock has recruited to Bear Cove/Medvejie Hatchery. This years chum egg goal at Medvejie is 102 million with an estimated brood stock need of 120,000 adults to achieve that goal. Our brood stock estimate on Wednesday was 90k chum. We have utilized approximately 20k chum for brood stock and our estimate of remaining chum in Bear Cove using aerial surveys is 70k chum remaining. We have not observed large recruitment over the past week and continue to see age 3 year old chum make up over 70% of the return. Age 3 chum tend to be smaller, produce fewer eggs, and typically more than 50% are male. In addition, as per our Brood Stock policy, we are preparing to take an additional 10 million eggs to make up a portion of the 24 million shortfall at Hidden Falls of summer chum brood. Announcement should be out late Wednesday or early Thursday morning.
It is anticipated that there will not be additional opportunity at Deep Inlet for common property fisheries for the 2020 season. The Deep Inlet return continues to perform poorly, currently at 41% of forecast. The return also appears to have peaked a week earlier than most years. There has been a continued drop off of numbers since reopening on August 27th and the sex ratio has dropped to 46% male. We will continue to monitor chum brood stock needs and numbers at Bear Cove and Deep Inlet. Current plan is to begin looking at brood stock capture opportunities late next week in Deep Inlet.
Crawfish and West Crawfish Inlet will remain open. Crawfish continues to surprise with the best return of any chum enhancement project in SE Alaska this season. Current projections will put the total return over 1 million fish. While this is only 65% of the pre-season projected forecast that is a much better return than any other NSRAA project. To date approximately 391k chum have been caught by seine, 60k by troll and 525k for cost recovery putting the total catch to date at 975k chum. There has been a high percentage of 3-year old chum in Crawfish (58%) but not as high as we are seeing in Deep Inlet. Sex ratio is also holding up a little better in Crawfish with the Sunday seine sample at 50% male. As with Deep Inlet it appears the peak was last week and we are on the downhill side of the bell curve. Bear in mind Crawfish Inlet is also a last resort for any shortfall of chum brood stock at Medvejie and if necessary may be utilized. Any potential closure would not occur until Sunday Sept 13th at the earliest.
While this closure is hard to take on a poor year in many regards. It is imperative for future years that we make our egg take goal. I have to believe that we will have better survival, prices and a less onerous operating environment in 4 to 5 years when the fish from this years egg take return.
Brood Collection Successful; Deep Inlet to Re-open
Operations Manger Adam Olson coordinated broodstock collection over the weekend. The operation was a success, with an estimated 33,000 chum caught and transported to Medvejie on two tenders, the Debbie Sue and the Grace C. The seiners Kalliste, Legacy, El Dorado and Reiver caught the fish and did a great job keeping them alive for transport. Thanks to all involved for your hard work.
Numbers of chum swimming into Bear Cove have improved over the past week. At this point we are optimistic that we’ll have enough fish for broodstock needs. Chum eggtakes are set to begin Wednesday.
The ADF&G news release came out this morning, re-opening Deep Inlet with a Troll day on Wednesday, August 26. The normal rotation will resume beginning with a seine opening on Thursday.
August 21 Weekly Update
Cost Recovery fishing this week at Crawfish has gone very well. We are currently at 80% complete of our pre-season goal. Based upon the current harvest rate we will complete Cost Recovery on Sunday August 23. We will open the entire Crawfish Inlet net SHA to common property seine harvest on Tuesday August 25. After Tuesday we will put CI in the same time/rotation as Deep Inlet seine. I anticipate there will be large volume accumulated in the SHA by Tuesday. Since Tuesday afternoon the vast majority of Cost Recovery has come out of Shamrock Bay in West Crawfish. Fish have started to move through Cedar Pass and there was a large body of fish south of the pass mid-week that haven’t turned the corner into the SHA as of yesterday. After Tuesday we will pull the net line back to the line approximately mid-SHA for the Thur/Fri seine openings. This will give 4 days of build in the outer SHA for Troll opportunity. Future SHA seine opening lines will partly depend on troll success in the outer SHA and fish quality and volume. So far fish quality this year has been excellent.
We have begun moving fish from Deep Inlet to Medvejie/Bear Cove. The first two loads are on the way currently and there appears to be sufficient volume to keep working on the fish and make decent progress today. Based upon this initial success I anticipate that we will make our goal of moving 30k chum and issue an opening announcement for Deep Inlet on Monday Aug 24. The re-opening will start on Wednesday with a troll day and then roll back into the normal Deep Inlet rotation with Seine Thur/Fri and troll Saturday to finish out the stat week. The net fleets will have re-balanced their fishing time and the normal rotation should continue until the end of season. Only complication would be if we continue to see poor recruitment to Bear Cove then another closure could be necessary.
August 14 Weekly Update
This week at Deep Inlet there was initial excitement as there was a good push of fish into the THA after the weekend rain and wind. This push appears to have been short lived as the catch began dropping off on the Wednesday Gillnet day and continued to drop the last two days for the seine fleet. At this point it is nearly a certainty we will close the Deep Inlet THA after the Gillnet rotation on Wednesday until further notice. Most recent sex ratio is still 66% male but the 3 year old component has increased in the last week from 60% to 74%. This combined with the drop in numbers is very concerning and necessitates the closure to protect brood stock for the egg takes at Medvejie. The Deep Inlet THA will reopen to common property fisheries as soon as practicable once we secure enough brood stock at Medvejie and from Deep Inlet. We will keep our website updated with the most recent information https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=884.
There is little good news from the Hidden Falls egg take also. The recruitment has slowed to a trickle and no significant additional egg takes will likely occur. We are currently approximately 30 million eggs short of our 190 million goal. We plan to take an additional 10 million fall Medvejie stock chum and are ready to receive eggs from DIPAC if they happen to have a surplus which looks less likely each day.
The one bright spot is that Crawfish Cost Recovery has made good progress and we are 35% of the way toward our goal with about 30% of that progress since Monday. The cost recovery boats are fishing daily, even during commercial seine openings, and are doing a good job of keeping the head of the Inlet cleaned up. Additional rain this weekend will likely bring in another pulse of fish and I anticipate next week will be the peak week for cost recovery. There are good numbers of chum in West Crawfish still and there were approximately 15 trollers working in the area Friday morning. Fish continue to move into the Crawfish Inlet SHA through Walker Channel and Middle entrance and the quality has remained high with few darker fish. As with Deep Inlet there is a high percentage of 3 year old fish (61% on 8/11) with 5’s at 5%. Sex ratio from the 11th was still 84% male but we will see if that holds up in the next CR sample this weekend. Based upon all other chum returns this year I anticipate that there will be a sharp drop of in numbers once we hit the peak. Lets hope I am wrong.
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