Commercial salmon harvests in Prince William Sound rose to a preliminary season total of 15,134,000 fish through Aug. 9, up from 13,752,000 salmon through Aug. 2, with pink salmon catches alone up from 8.4 million to 9.8 million fish.
Sockeye harvests bumped up from 1,914,000 to 1,928,000 fish, silvers from 4,000 to 14,000 fish and chums from 3,408,000 to 3,416,000 fish, while the Chinook harvest stayed as 12,000 kings.
The big issue was returns to hatcheries, which so far are looking weak, said Jeremy Botz, gillnet area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at Cordova. Right now Prince William Sound Aquaculture Corp. is conducting its cost recovery at three hatcheries, with the management priorities being to meet cost recovery and brood stock needs, he said.
Dave Reggiani, general manager for PWSAC, with headquarters in Cordova, was not available for comment.
The statewide preliminary harvest rosefrom 83.8 million.
Botz said weak pink salmon runs are being seen across the Gulf of Alaska.
“It’s something they all have in common, so likely ocean conditions came into play,” he said. While that was probably a driver, there were weaker escapements in 2014 in some districts, Botz noted.
“The hatcheries have similar numbers of fish returning every year and we are seeing weak returns on their part,” he said.
What’s causing it?
Botz said there are a whole bunch of variables, one of which is likely that water temperatures are still up, after being above normal for most of the summer.
The situation was quite the opposite on the Yukon River, where the summer chum run proved above forecast and the fall run now coming in also appears to be stronger than forecast.
Jeff Estensen, ADF&G fall season manager for the Yukon River.
“So far the call chum run is looking good and we are anticipating the run will come in at or above the forecast,” he said.
Estensen also said reports from fishermen are that the chums are good looking and bigger than average, and that it appears that the run is early.
Still, fall chums enter the Yukon in pulses, and while the run began with a nice pulse, it had been several days since the last one, he said.
ADF&G’s job on the Yukon is to manage the commercial fishery to provide for enough opportunity, while getting as much fish as they can upriver for subsistence use. “It’s a matter of spreading out the harvest over the entire run,” he said.
Overall for the seven-day period ended Aug. 9, the Yukon River harvest reached 813,000 fish, including 683,000 chums, 127,000 finks and 3,000 silvers, up from 658,000 chums, 127,000 humpies and 2,000 cohos seven days earlier.
Bristol Bay’s catch stood at more than 39 million salmon, up from 38.5 million fish a week earlier, and in Cook Inlet the catch rose from 3 million to 3.6 million fish.
Southeast Alaska commercial harvesters saw their harvest increase from 13.5 million to 19 million salmon, with the humpy catch alone rising from 7.4 million to 11.8 million fish.
Other Southeast commercial harvest preliminary totals were 1,034,000 cohos, up from 816,000 fish; more than 5 million chums, up from 4.7 million fish, and 247,000 kings, up from 240,000 fish.
On the Alaska Peninsula the harvest rose from 9,269,000 to 9,352,000 salmon.
Chignik harvests reached1.6 million salmon, up from 1.4 million fish, while at Kodiak the harvest rose from 14 million to 15.2 million salmon.
