The Deep Inlet fall chum catch continued to be strong over the weekend with another good catch on Sunday by the seine fleet and the combined gillnet, seine, and troll catch for stat wk 33 is looking to be over 200k fish. The most recent seine samples from Fri and Sun show a drop in male ratio to ~50% male and an increase in the 3-year old percentage from the mid 30% range prior week to 65% 3-year olds, with age fours making up the remaining 35%. While the recent strong catches are good to see the rapid drop in 4-year olds is concerning and likely means the run will have a sharp drop off once the run has peaked, which based upon sex ratio, is likely this week. Let’s hope I am wrong but the age ratio is tracking very closely to last year and the run quickly petered out past the peak.
Troll catch and effort continues to be high in both the Sitka Sound/Eastern Channel area as well as West Crawfish. Today I would estimate over 50 trollers working the Deep Inlet area with an additional 18 in West Crawfish. Based upon the numbers of fish observed going over the rails today, daily averages continue to be high. In West Crawfish chum continue to move through the area with good show of fish from north of Cedar pass through to the Crawfish Inlet side of the pass. Cost recovery fishing in Crawfish Inlet today was very impressive with todays catch approaching 1 million pounds alone (last fished Friday for ~230k pounds). We will continue cost recovery fishing in Crawfish Inlet on Tuesday and likely every day at the head with the current strong recruitment.
The strong Deep Inlet chum catch, continued presence of large volumes in Sitka Sound/Eastern Channel and Silver Bay, greatly reduce our brood stock concerns for Medvejie. Current estimate in Bear Cove is 10k chum out of the 90k needed. There are widely distributed small schools in Silver Bay from Entry Point all the way to Bear Cove. With current water clarity it is hard to put a number on those fish making their way back to Medvejie but it appears to be substantial. We will continue to monitor recruitment to Bear Cove and provide regular updates on brood stock. Closure at Deep Inlet is not likely for next week and we are also evaluating options/logistics to secure brood at Crawfish Inlet in case of a shortage at Medvejie.
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