Chum returns to Hidden Falls continue to improve and it is beginning to look like our forecast of 800k adults may be possible. To date approximately 213k adults have been harvested by the seine fishery. This will certainly be the largest commercial catch in the Hidden Falls THA in over a decade by the time it is over. While I am optimistic that the return is coming in strong and continuing to build, the Thursday July 6th Hidden Falls opener has had further area restrictions to begin to accumulate brood stock in Kasnyku Bay. Currently there is less than 5k adults behind the barrier net with an additional 15-20k in the immediate area outside of the barrier net. Our brood stock goal for Hidden Falls this season is 230k adult chum.
There have been encouraging seine catches of chum at Point Augusta and the seine test fishery at Point Gardner and Kingsmill. Unfortunately all previous week common property Augusta and Gardner test fisheries have had the harvest mixed with other fisheries on the tenders or at the plants. When this occurs it makes spending the time collecting, reading and analyzing the harvest contribution by project mostly pointless. We just received and are currently processing the Sunday Augusta sample, which so far appears to be unmixed. Once that is complete we will jump onto Monday and Tuesday’s Gardner and Kingsmill samples which were unfortunately mixed on the tender. The Gardner harvest volume on 7/3 is particularly encouraging as it is 10 times the long term average. Main questions is are those Hidden Falls fish or SE Cove bound. The information will be interesting but also impossible to compare to previous test fisheries due to the mixing. We have reached out to processors and offered assistance to try and prevent this issue from occurring again.
Our early spring egg take goal for Hidden Falls chum was 160 million. Since then NSRAA and AKI have come to an agreement to allow NSRAA to release up to 40 million additional chum salmon on their behalf in the Hidden Falls THA. We just received the Notice of Permit Alteration for Hidden Falls from ADFG last week to allow this to occur. The 230k adult chum brood stock goal for Hidden Falls mentioned above takes into account this additional egg take need this year. This additional group of chum should be released next spring from Takatz. This will bring the Hidden Falls chum release numbers back up to where they were prior to 2016 when NSRAA moved 40 million chum out of the Hidden Falls THA to Thomas Bay and Bear Cove. It is our hope that this increase in release numbers can take advantage of recent uptick in chum marine survival in the Chatham Strait corridor.
Openings at Hidden Falls will continue to be made based upon the best information we have and also continue to error on the conservative side when information is missing in order to assure brood needs are met. The last year over 200k chum were harvested at Hidden Falls was 2018 when we over harvested and ended up short of brood. This resulted in no Hidden Falls chum stock released at Deep Inlet in 2019 and a short fall of 10 million at both Thomas Bay and SE Cove. Assuring we make our brood needs is the best course to ensure future returns are strong. Tomorrows opening (7/6) at Hidden Falls will be very informative on determining the trajectory of the return this year.
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