Crawfish Inlet Chum Cost Recovery to Begin
Sitka Sound Seafoods won the bid to harvest chum salmon at Crawfish Inlet. SSS plans to exercise their option to harvest there, perhaps as early as August 17 or 18. The Crawfish Inlet program was started in 2016 and expecting a modest show of three-year-olds this year. However, the proportion of 3s is quite strong with 22% 3s in the troll catch, and of these, more than half are from the Crawfish release. NSRAA is required to keep the terminal area mopped up of chum to reduce straying. Trollers have priority in Crawfish Inlet, but NSRAA is required to harvest any surplus every 7 to 10 days....
Read MoreDeep Inlet to Close August 19 2017
Deep Inlet will close at 11:59 p.m. on August 19th for cost recovery harvest. We will harvest approximately 200,000 chum salmon or 1.6 million pounds (the ADF&G announcement was incorrect). We expect the closure to last about ten days. August 20 & 21 will be common property seine days with no harvest in Deep Inlet expected. Cost recovery harvest will begin on August 22 after three build-up days that will closely coincide with the peak of the Deep Inlet run. The Special Harvest Area (SHA) for cost recovery harvest includes the waters east of a line from Cape Burunof to Makhnati. Cost...
Read MoreDeep Inlet – August 11 2017
We will announce a Deep Inlet closure date next Tuesday August 15th. It is likely we will close August 19th after the troll opening. We expect to see a major shift in the chum run over the weekend as a low pressure system enters SE Alaska. The gillnet fleet has already noticed a change in chum numbers entering Deep Inlet. The 50 boat troll fleet saw a significant movement of chum from the Biorka to St. Larzaria line on Wednesday to a line from Vitskari Rocks to Povorotni Point today. The troll harvest rate has been running about 12,000 fish/day. We will evaluate the sex ratio and catch...
Read MoreDeep Inlet Update August 6, 2017
Deep Inlet fall run is beginning to heat up for the troll fleet, but the fish have stalled in Sitka Sound due to the sunny, still weather. The latest sex ratio is 72% male in a troll sample with 22% of the sample being 3-year-old fish. This is unusual to see this many threes this early in the run and could mean a very large bell curve for the threes. A small component of those 3’s were Crawfish Inlet bound chum. The big question we are evaluating is when to have the closure for cost recovery. Our goal is to close Deep Inlet at or during the peak of the run so we can have it closed for...
Read MoreHidden Falls’ Takatz Bay to Open July 20, 2017
Currently we have 25,000 chum collected for broodstock behind the barrier in Kasnyku Bay. The Hidden Falls staff took the first 4 million eggs yesterday and continue to pass chum through the barrier net daily. Observations by spotter pilots, fishing boats, and our drone show good numbers of chum in Kasnyku and around Round Island to Pt. Turbot, although the fish move around constantly. Chum have been observed in Takatz as well. Given that the 175,000 chum still needed for broodstock have not been secured and they are moving in and out of Kasnyku I have decided to have a discrete Takatz Bay...
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