After a slow first 10 days of fishing at Hidden Falls things have begun to pick up. Yesterday (6/29) in the Thursday seine opening approximately 60k chum were harvested compared to a cumulative total of 25k for the previous 10 days. The 6/29 sample had a 6.5lb size avg, 67% male and the age structure of the return so far is relatively “normal” with the majority being age 4. . While this harvest increase gives us confidence that the return is tracking our forecast of 800k total return, the lines have been modified for Sundays (7/2) opener to provide more protection for brood stock chum in Kasnyku Bay. Area open lines will be modified opening by opening to manage for a brood stock need of 230k chum in order to meet our egg take goal. Please monitor the ADFG Advisory Announcements for line changes each opening. Our Hidden Falls in-season data page is updated frequently and can be found here: https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=883
Deep Inlet chum return numbers are still relatively small but tracking on the higher end of the long-term average and our forecast. This is primarily being driven by a large number of 3-year old summer stock chum which are making up approximately 50% of the harvest. This is a very high percentage of 3-year old’s for this stock and this early in the return, as 3-year old’s typically return towards the end of the run. Additionally we do not have any 5-year old summer stock chum returning this year. As the catch is made up of only 3 and 4 year old chum the average size has been very small with a 4.8lb average this week and a high male average of 83%. The Deep Inlet in-season data page is also updated nearly daily with the most current information available to us. Link here: https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=884
This year our cost recovery is being split 50/50 between SE Cove and Crawfish Inlet. There was an attempt this week to perform cost recovery in SE Cove but the harvest was extremely small. SE Cove chum returns tend to start building this week and next. Our current plan is to have a net in the water next week on Tuesday. The cost recovery progress is tracked on our home page with a progress bar. Once cost recovery needs are met at SE Cove we will open for rotational fisheries.
The Point Gardner and the Hawk Inlet test fisheries both indicate an above long-term average number of chum salmon. Additionally there was a decent harvest of chum salmon in the Point Augusta fishery this past Sunday. Typically this time of year the vast majority of Point Agusta chum harvest is Hidden Falls chum. We were unable to obtain an unmixed otolith sample from this last opening at Augusta but are planning on acquiring one from this upcoming opening on Sunday. We are currently in the process of acquiring samples from the Point Gardner and Hawk Inlet test fisheries. This information should be available early next week.
Let’s hope things continue to build.
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