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Sept 4th- Deep Inlet Update - We continue to assess chum recruitment into Bear Cove and are getting closer to our fall chum brood stock goal. Recruitment is steady but has slowed with the recent shift back to sunny weather. NSRAA will attempt to collect chum brood from the head of Deep Inlet this weekend in order to assure we have […]
August 27th-Deep Inlet Closure - The Deep Inlet THA will close to common property fishing on August 31st due to fall chum brood shortages at Medvejie Hatchery. Currently there is an estimated 40,000 chum brood in Bear Cove. To complete fall chum egg takes an additional 50,000 brood are needed. There has not been a meaningful increase in chum brood […]
August 21st-Return Update - Fall chum returns to Sitka Sound and the Deep Inlet THA have remained strong since reopening the THA this past Saturday. In the past two weeks over a million fall chum have been harvested between the Sitka Sound common property troll/seine fisheries and the Deep Inlet openings. This week the total Deep Inlet chum return […]
August 13 – Deep Inlet Re-Opening Announcement - Deep Inlet has met the Cost Recovery goal this season. Deep Inlet will reopen Saturday, August 15th, with Troll and will continue with the standard rotation. An ADFG announcement will be posted shortly.
August 11-Deep Inlet Cost Recovery Progress - Cost recovery in Deep Inlet on Saturday and Sunday made significant progress on cost recovery and currently 81% of the goal has been harvested. Cost recovery will resume Wednesday, August 12th. Due to the increase in cost recovery harvest it is likely that our goal will be achieved over the next two days. A reopening […]August 22-Deep Inlet Cost Recovery Progress Update
Based upon Friday morning Deep Inlet cost recovery progress, a Deep Inlet reopening announcement will not be issued at this time. At current harvest rates it is unlikely our cost recovery goal will be met by end of day Saturday. The next potential reopening announcement has been pushed back to Monday, August 25th and will be issued as soon as possible after Deep Inlet cost recovery has been completed. If there is a Monday announcement the Deep Inlet schedule would be Tuesday-Troll, Wednesday-seine, Thur/Fri-gillnet, Saturday seine. Our homepage Sitka Area Deep Inlet cost recovery progress bar will continue to be updated daily over the weekend.
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 18th, 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.
Return Update-August 8th
Fall chum returns to Deep Inlet have begun this past week and are tracking along with our pre-season projections for the stat week. Gillnet harvest at Deep Inlet this past week was 25,000 chum and the seine chum harvest may top 100,000 by the end of harvest on Friday. Troll chum effort and catch increased this past week in Sitka Sound and approximately 15,000 have been harvested in stat week 32. There are reports that the troll chum catch dropped off in the last 24 hours with the change to rainy, windy, weather conditions in the sound. Total fall chum harvest for Deep Inlet for stat week 32 will likely be in the 150,000 fish range.
The Deep Inlet THA will remain open for troll through 11:59 p.m., August 9, at which time the THA will close to common property fishing for cost recovery. The Deep Inlet cost recovery harvest is currently 62% complete and cost recovery fishing will restart on Sunday, August 10th. Based upon fall chum run timing and run strength the THA may need to be closed for several weeks to fulfill the cost recovery goal. Once the cost recovery goal is complete the THA will reopen for common property fishing. NSRAA has projected a total return of 1.4 million fall chum to Deep Inlet.
Coho returns continue to be strong and above recent harvest averages for this date with Hidden Falls and Deer Lake leading the NSRAA coho projects. To date over 20,000 NSRAA coho have been harvested in troll and sport fisheries.
Return Update-August 1st
Return Update-August 1st
Returns this past week of summer run chum salmon have continued their decline after peaking in mid-July with all four return sites coming in under forecast. Both Hidden Falls and Thomas Bay will come in substantially under forecast. SE Cove will finish up approximately 20% under the pre-season forecast and finally the summer run Deep Inlet chum will end up being approximately 15% under forecast. While there will still be a few of the tail end of the summer run chum returning for the next week or so, all sites seem to be rapidly winding down.
Cost Recovery
With the diminishing summer chum returns there has been minor progress on cost recovery at Hidden Falls, Deep Inlet and SE Cove. Cost recovery will continue at Hidden Falls and SE Cove this weekend but no significant harvest is anticipated. Cost recovery chum harvest at Medvejie-Bear Cove Wednesday resulted in the first early indication of the fall chum run beginning to show up and made up 45% of the harvest. Cost recovery at Deep Inlet will continue after next week’s Deep Inlet opening for stat week 32.
Egg-takes
Chum egg-takes at Medvejie and Gunnuk Creek have been completed with all goals met. Hidden Falls will complete egg-takes over the weekend and have sufficient chum brood secured to meet all project goals. Chinook salmon have just begun to recruit up the ladder at Medvejie the last few days and we anticipate sufficient brood have been secured behind the barrier net. Chinook egg-takes should begin mid-August.
Coho
We continue to see a strong early season catch of NSRAA produced coho from all sites. Hidden Falls is coming in significantly better than recent years with nearly 6,000 harvested in the troll fishery to date. This early Hidden Falls coho troll harvest is the highest through stat week 30 than in the last 10 years. Deer Lake, Bear Cove and Deep Inlet coho runs are also performing better than most recent years through stat week 30. Overall NSRAA coho have contributed over 12,000 coho to the troll fishery through stat week 30.
Return Update-July 24th
This past week has seen a steep decline in returns to all NSRAA chum sites. This decline has been seen at Deep Inlet, Hidden Falls, SE Cove and Thomas Bay. Unfortunately this has created challenges making any significant progress on cost recovery. We continue to monitor the returns at the Terminal Harvest Areas and are sampling the relevant common property fisheries to determine if this is the end of the run or an extremely truncated tail end of the summer chum returns. The Chatham strait test fisheries continue to indicate an above average number of chum in the area but we are not seeing that correlate to any meaningful increase in chum numbers in the THA’s.
SE Cove
Wednesday of last week it became apparent that there was a large buildup of chum in the SE Cove THA beyond the capacity of the processor to effectively manage. NSRAA worked with multiple processors to harvest a significant amount of chum on Saturday July 19th. Additionally, a common property seine opening occurred on Sunday July 20th and approximately 85,000 chum were harvested. Since the Sunday seine opener there has been a small build of chum and the THA will open to gillnet tomorrow, Friday July 24th. After Friday the THA will again close until the remainder of cost recovery is completed. There continues to be high prevalence of SE Cove bound chum in the Kingsmill test fishery and SE Cove made up 54% on the 7/15 fishing date. We should have this week’s Kingsmill test fishery data available late Friday.
Hidden Falls
Last week Hidden Falls had a total return of approximately 350,000 fish and was the peak week for this year’s return. The weekly return was utilized for brood stock at 100,000 and with 250,000 utilized for cost recovery. Cost recovery efforts on Monday of this week was very poor with just over 100,000lbs harvested. Since Monday no additional cost recovery has occurred and there has been little buildup in Kasnyku Bay. Brood stock is at 80% secured and we will continue to monitor for cost recovery opportunities. Sunday’s area 112-16 chum sample indicated Hidden Falls returning chum made up 38% of sample. Area 112-11 along Catherine Island is open for seine today and we will be evaluating the volume and make up of that harvest to determine what may be still to come for Hidden Falls.
Deep Inlet
Returns to Deep Inlet and Bear Cove also drastically declined this week. Brood stock for Medvejie summer chum egg takes has been secured. Cost recovery efforts this week were disappointing after the significant progress made the last week. As with Hidden Falls last week was the peak week for summer chum return numbers to Deep Inlet and fish are not currently recruiting in any meaningful number to Deep Inlet.
Thomas Bay
As mentioned for all our other summer chum return sites, numbers harvested in Thomas Bay have declined from the previous week. Thomas Bay returns are now tracking below the low point of our pre-season forecast. Thomas Bay remains open to common property with limited effort due to volume of fish currently returning.
Coho
One potential bright spot in returns are the early season interception of NSRAA released coho. All NSRAA coho sites seem to be tracking ahead of recent years in numbers by this date. It is particularly encouraging to see the Hidden Falls coho currently leading the NSRAA produced portion of the sport and troll harvest with over 2,500 fish accounted for so far. Hidden Falls coho returns have been very poor for quite a few years and a strong return to the site would be great to see. For the Sitka area the Deep Inlet released portion of our coho production is also performing much better than recent years and harvest to date is 4 times the Bear Cove released coho group.
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