Hidden Falls Over 1.3 Million Return & Deep Inlet Fall Chum Starts

The Hidden Falls run surpassed the 1.3 million chum forecast with the July 21st opening. Chum continue to trickle in but it appears nearly over. The Hidden Falls stock at Deep Inlet performed quite well this year with some 500,000 chum harvested by the three gear groups. Larger chum are beginning to get caught (5 year old males?)  in the Eastern Channel troll fishery so it is likely the fall run is starting.

Hidden Falls is breaking spawning records nearly every day. Eggtakes are tedious and arduous when the goal is 135 million eggs and the average day yields 7 million eggs, taking 20 straight days. However, this year record eggtakes are established and broken almost every day, although the tedium and difficulty remain. Ten million eggs was the previous best, but that fell this year to 11 million, and then 12 million and yesterday to 14.6 million eggs. We now have 70 million eggs in incubators, over half way there.

NSRAA coho are showing up in very good numbers at Mist Cove, Kasnyku, and Eastern Channel.