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. Based on otolith recoveries there have been large numbers of NSRAA chum in the Crawfish and West Crawfish area.