Our Blog
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 […]June 14th, Weekly Return Update
This week summer run chum return numbers to Deep Inlet are rapidly increasing. Last week things began to look promising as the Gillnet chum harvest was over 3,500 fish. This overall isn’t a large number but when put in context is more than double the previous stat week record in 2015 of 1,500 fish. This week will blow the previous record out of the water and we may be on track to break 50,000 chum harvest for stat week 24, previous record was 10,800. This will be 5 times the previous 2015 stat week record and begins to put us on track for the high end or our pre-season forecast. While it is still very early in the summer chum return, things are looking very encouraging that the return will come in above our pre-season forecast of 1.4 million chum salmon returning to Deep Inlet and Bear Cove. Of the Deep Inlet chum harvest to date there is a roughly 50/50 split between chum bound for Deep Inlet and Bear Cove which also tracks with our pre-season forecast.
Now the million fish question for Deep Inlet is whether the summer chum run is early, early and large, or just large. The next week or two will answer that question for Deep Inlet.
This Sunday will be the first seine opening at Hidden Falls, SE Cove and Thomas Bay. At Hidden Falls we have several thousand chum already on the barrier net and some scattered schools in Kasnyku Bay. This is the earliest we have seen this number of chum in many years. There are also reports of fish in the outer Hidden Falls THA and also some working their way down Catherine Island. The Sunday seine opener will shed some light on if the Hidden Falls return will follow the strong early return we are currently seeing at Deep Inlet. SE Cove and Thomas Bay summer chum returns tend to come in a week or so after the Hidden Falls returns start and we do not have any reports of chum building in those THA’s yet.
Mid next week we will likely begin cost recovery harvest in Bear Cove and the head of Deep Inlet. Cost recovery harvest will continue in these areas at least up until July 1st when we will begin cost recovery harvest in the Eastern Channel/Silver Bay Special Harvest Area (SHA). We will continue to have rotational fisheries in the Deep Inlet THA as we conduct cost recovery fishing. Please be prepared to see recovery boats fishing in the SHA concurrently with the rotational fisheries in the THA. This SHA is from Cape Burunof to Sentinel Rock, all of Eastern Channel and up Silver Bay past Bear Cove. If we can fulfill our cost recovery goals outside of the Deep Inlet THA a closure of the THA is not warranted. You can track our Deep Inlet cost recovery goal progress (and all other cost recovery efforts) on the home page of our website.
Good luck fishing this weekend things may get interesting.
AWARDED Cost Recovery Bids: 2024 Season
See below request for proposal documents and winners for 2024 cost recovery bids.
Silver Bay Seafoods – Chum Cost Recovery – Crawfish Inlet and West Crawfish Inlet
Silver Bay Seafoods – Chum Cost Recovery – Sitka Area
Trident Seafoods – Chum Cost Recovery – Southeast Cove and Gunnuk Creek
Silver Bay Seafoods – Chum Cost Recovery – Hidden Falls
No Bidders – Carcasses – All Sites
E.C. Phillips – Coho – Hidden Falls and Mist Cove
2024 Fishing Schedules
Click here for 2024 schedules, cost recovery plan, and Deep Inlet calendar. ADF&G announcements will be posted as they become available.
Economic Benefits of Hatcheries
Alaska’s PNP hatchery associations contracted with McKinley Research Group
to update previous research on the economic impact of hatcheries. This update
covers 2018-2023. See link below for details!
RSS - Posts
Recent Comments