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. If we continue to see building of the chum volume in the inner bay, and corresponding building of volume offshore of Hidden Falls in the test fishing effort next week, it will indicate that our broodstock chum needs will likely be met. It is possible that a seine opening of a small portion of the Hidden Falls THA could occur in the last week of July. (Link to the Hidden Falls Test Fishing/CR fishing web page https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5448 )
Not only did we see a large increase in harvest at all our inside terminal areas, the Sunday, July 10th, Augusta seine opener and the July 12th Point Gardner test fishery saw large increases in chum harvest. The catch from this week at Gardner was more than double the recent 10 year average. We have read the July 10th Augusta chum otolith sample and a majority of those are bound for Hidden Falls, with smaller components bound for DIPAC, SE Cove and Thomas Bay. While the Hawk Inlet test fishery catch did not increase much last week the NSRAA portion of the chum increased ~10%. We are hoping to have the Gardner test fishing chum otolith sample data available early next week as a majority of these fish are likely bound for Hidden Falls. (Link to the NSRAA website with ADFG test fishing chum otolith information- https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5485 )
While chum returns on the inside have improved greatly the Deep Inlet chum return continues to be marginal but is coming in as predicted. There are signs that we are starting to see the early portion of the fall chum return in the Deep Inlet catch, with large, bright males starting to increase. We are also seeing a slight uptick in the male sex ratio and older aged chum in our weekly seine and gillnet otolith sampling. Historically the fall chum return begins to show up in larger numbers beginning at the end of July.
Lets hope these positive signs continue to develop over the weekend and into next week.
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