Deep Inlet Lull – Between Summer and Fall Runs
I am dedicating these comments this evening to Botso. He let me know fishermen wanted to hear what is happening with the fall Medvejie run. I probably should have put my thoughts down sooner, so thanks for the encouragement Mr. Eliason. So far 530,000 chum have been caught at Deep Inlet by trollers, gillnetters and seiners; almost all of those are from the Hidden Falls summer run stock (it preformed about double forecast). The real question is ‘will the fall run materialize?’ Naturally, I don’t know but reviewing the historical run timing, there are years when the fall run...
Read MoreHidden Falls Down, Deep Inlet Up
Hidden Falls chum continue to show nearly 90% five year olds in a weaker than expected return, at least so far . That translates to less than 20,000 four year old chum caught. Without a better showing of fours in the next opening, meeting the broodstock goal of 170,000 may be difficult. Therefore, the Sunday July 6 opening hangs in the balance. DIPAC is seeing similar high numbers with some 80% of the return five year olds. However, the DIPAC chum return is 3 to 4 times as large, and therefore broodstock is less of a concern. Deep Inlet by contrast is performing much better. The total...
Read MoreHidden Falls & Deep Inlet Chum Return Out of the Blocks
It is too early to predict what will happen with the chum return at either Hidden Falls or Deep Inlet. There have been years at Hidden Falls when there were only 8,000 fish caught by the week ending June 28 which ended up with total returns for those years at 2.7 m (’99) and 3.1 million (’00) chum salmon. There have also been years when catches have been in excess of 350,000 by June 28 and the run ended up at 1.3 million (2013). Total catch to date at Hidden Falls is 43,000 chum with one opening to go for the week. Therefore, it is likely the week will end behind the twenty year...
Read MoreDeep Inlet Return Over 2 Million and Climbing…..Slowly
Deep Inlet gillnet catch on Saturday was bigger than I expected with some 50,000 chum caught. Sunday’s seine catch looks to be about 50,000 also based on early catch reports. Seiners continue fishing chum today in common property areas of Sitka Sound and the gillnet fleet is back in the Deep Inlet THA. Trolling is mostly done in Eastern Channel and Sitka Sound but not before the trollers harvested about 400,000 chum. Congratulations to the troll fleet. Egg takes have started at Medvejie with over 8 million eggs taken over the weekend. Between this and the high female sex ratio in the...
Read MoreDeep Inlet Chum & Mist Cove Coho
Deep Inlet in-season forecast is 2.5 million chum, nearly double the preseason number. Last week saw 440,000 fish caught and may have been the peak, but the current week is already at 176,000 with only Sunday’s catch represented. Total return to date is 1.74 million, so we expect another 800,000 fish in the run. I would add this is probably conservative. The Deep Inlet troll catch is dropping off rapidly, coinciding with the heavy rains on Saturday.The total troll catch is 410,000 and close to a new record. If it weren’t for the processor harvest limits and changes to price...
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