Returns across the board continue to under perform forecasts and this past week it has become clear Hidden Falls will not make brood stock goals. At Hidden Falls we are seeing less than 20k chum at the weir and barrier net with little activity in Kasnyku Bay. There continue to be reports of chum between Round Island and Takatz but their behavior is indicative of early fish staying offshore and not congregating into larger schools. A total of 16m eggs have been taken to date. In order to preserve the best opportunity for additional chum brood stock for Hidden Falls the Thursday seine opener at SE Cove was canceled. SE Cove will continue to remain closed until we have secured sufficient brood stock for Hidden Falls. Unfortunately this may utilize the remainder of the chum return to SE Cove. The Sunday seine catch at SE Cove was less than 10k chum and the build up since then has been weak. This morning we loaded approximately 4k live chum onto the tender Lady Rosemary for transport to Hidden Falls. They arrived at Hidden Falls around 1pm with less than 1% mortality. These chum have been placed into a holding pen for acclimatization and eventual release behind the barrier net to ascend the fish ladder. We continue to fish at SE Cove collecting additional brood stock. Due to the slow build up at SE Cove we will likely cease fishing at end of day Thursday and restart Monday.
Lady Rosemary offloading adult chum from SE Cove at Hidden Falls Thursday July 23rd.
As all of you are aware chum returns across the region are meager. Deep Inlet chum catch took a sharp drop this past week and continues to be very poor. It is clear there is a break between the early Hidden Falls summer run and the fall Medvejie stock return. Chip Blair, our Data Analyst, put together a chart looking back at 35 years of chum catch statistics through stat week 29 for Alaska. Not only is this years chum return poor for SE Alaska, it is the worst since 1989, statewide is also tracking similar (link to data https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=4630).
This past Tuesday we collected the first chum cost recovery from Crawfish Inlet. This initial effort was to clean out the last of the returning Chinook to the project and to begin evaluating the numbers of chum in the Inlet. A total of 3,000lbs of chum were caught with a 10.2lb average and an 89% male sex ratio. Next week we anticipate sufficient numbers to begin cost recovery on a routine basis. Cost recovery will be limited to the east half of the SHA in Crawfish Inlet and will occur until the full goal of $4m dollars is harvested.
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