July 22-Return Update

Returns this past week for summer chum salmon continue to increase to all our release sites. Yesterday (Thursday) there was the first opening at Hidden Falls for chum in several years. It appears the 2022 chum return to Hidden Falls will be the best since 2018.  We continue to see a high proportion of Hidden Falls chum in the Point Augusta common property openings as well as the ADFG Point Gardner test fishing efforts.  The last Point Gardner test fishing, on July 19th, continues to be above the long-term average for this time of year. SE Cove also continues to see a steady harvest of chum with the catch this week likely surpassing the 5-year average. It is beginning to look like we will come close to our forecasts for most of our inside summer chum salmon release sites.

At Hidden Falls this week we had another large increase in the average number of pounds of chum per set in the test fishing results. This increased our confidence in meeting our brood stock goal and limited opportunity was provided on Thursday. Currently we are 25% through the Hidden Falls chum egg take and still need another 150k adult chum to complete our egg take goal. Daily recruitment into the lagoon and up that ladder remain strong allowing for daily egg takes in the 7-10 million/day range. Hidden Falls will again open to seine this Sunday, July 24th, with a moderate increase in area. The THA from Greystone (Cosmos Pt) north and White Cliff south will be open. Please review the ADFG seine announcement for specific latitude lines. It is likely that additional open area will be provided next Thursday assuming brood stock recruitment maintains current daily rates.

In the last several days there has been an increase in catch at Deep Inlet on the early portion of the fall run chums.  Additionally trollers have begun to target chum in the Eastern Channel and outer Sitka sound area. There were an estimated 30 working the area on Thursday with moderate success. We will be sampling this troll catch to ascertain origin of these chum.  It is likely a majority will be bound for Bear Cove which is what we saw last year and the high survival of returning 3 year olds. To date most of the early fall run chum in Deep Inlet are age 4. It will be interesting to see how this return develops over the next week.

After a very disappointing first 3 weeks to the summer chum returns it is good to see the numbers approach forecast and provide some additional opportunity to the fleets.