July 29th-Return Update
Chum returns to our inside summer sites appears to have peaked and is beginning to wind down. Catches this week will likely be about half of last week at Thomas Bay, SE Cove and Hidden Falls but all are on track to meet or exceed our pre-season forecast. A first for the inside sites in many years. While the summer chum return to Deep Inlet is winding down, the fall chum return continues to show strong early numbers. The Deep Inlet net catches for chum last week quadrupled from week prior with an 80% male sex ratio on seine, gillnet and troll samples and are track to at least double again...
Read MoreJuly 22-Return Update
Returns this past week for summer chum salmon continue to increase to all our release sites. Yesterday (Thursday) there was the first opening at Hidden Falls for chum in several years. It appears the 2022 chum return to Hidden Falls will be the best since 2018. We continue to see a high proportion of Hidden Falls chum in the Point Augusta common property openings as well as the ADFG Point Gardner test fishing efforts. The last Point Gardner test fishing, on July 19th, continues to be above the long-term average for this time of year. SE Cove also continues to see a steady harvest of chum...
Read MoreJuly 15th-Return Update
This past week we have seen a large increase in chum harvest at all of our inside summer chum sites. This is very encouraging as up until this past week the chum catch had been substantially below forecast. Both SE Cove and Thomas Bay had a dramatic increase in catch this past week with more than a doubling of numbers and effort. On Tuesday we performed the 4th weekly Hidden Falls test fishing and saw a dramatic change from prior weeks with an average catch of 13,000lbs per set. Our current estimate is 10k adult chum inside the barrier net and we will begin spawning on Monday of next week....
Read MoreJuly 9th-Return Update
Chum returns through this Friday (July 8th) continue to be extremely weak. While we were not anticipating any strong summer chum returns to our project sites, the numbers to date are significantly behind our forecast for this date. Total cumulative combined summer chum catch to date, for all NSRAA return areas, is less than 20,000 fish. This is approximately 20% of the 2021 catch for the same time period. While there is always hope that it may be a late run, it is looking more and more likely that it is a late and weak run. This past week there have been increases in catch at all our...
Read MoreWed 9/1 Silver Bay Update
In cooperation with ADFG, NSRAA is opening a portion of the Silver Bay THA to common property seine on Thursday, Sept 1, to harvest fall chum salmon surplus to brood stock needs. This past Saturday a large buildup of Bear Cove bound chum staged in the Sawmill Cove area. NSRAA performed limited cost recovery in Sawmill Cove on Saturday Aug 28th to target a buildup of chum salmon staged near Sawmill Creek. The otolith data of this harvest of 190klbs indicated approximately 75% of those chum were Bear Cove bound fish, with the remainder Deep Inlet origin and overall 91% 3-year olds and 56%...
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