This week summer run chum return numbers to Deep Inlet are rapidly increasing. Last week things began to look promising as the Gillnet chum harvest was over 3,500 fish. This overall isn’t a large number but when put in context is more than double the previous stat week record in 2015 of 1,500 fish. This week will blow the previous record out of the water and we may be on track to break 50,000 chum harvest for stat week 24, previous record was 10,800. This will be 5 times the previous 2015 stat week record and begins to put us on track for the high end or our pre-season forecast. While it is still very early in the summer chum return, things are looking very encouraging that the return will come in above our pre-season forecast of 1.4 million chum salmon returning to Deep Inlet and Bear Cove. Of the Deep Inlet chum harvest to date there is a roughly 50/50 split between chum bound for Deep Inlet and Bear Cove which also tracks with our pre-season forecast.
Now the million fish question for Deep Inlet is whether the summer chum run is early, early and large, or just large. The next week or two will answer that question for Deep Inlet.
This Sunday will be the first seine opening at Hidden Falls, SE Cove and Thomas Bay. At Hidden Falls we have several thousand chum already on the barrier net and some scattered schools in Kasnyku Bay. This is the earliest we have seen this number of chum in many years. There are also reports of fish in the outer Hidden Falls THA and also some working their way down Catherine Island. The Sunday seine opener will shed some light on if the Hidden Falls return will follow the strong early return we are currently seeing at Deep Inlet. SE Cove and Thomas Bay summer chum returns tend to come in a week or so after the Hidden Falls returns start and we do not have any reports of chum building in those THA’s yet.
Mid next week we will likely begin cost recovery harvest in Bear Cove and the head of Deep Inlet. Cost recovery harvest will continue in these areas at least up until July 1st when we will begin cost recovery harvest in the Eastern Channel/Silver Bay Special Harvest Area (SHA). We will continue to have rotational fisheries in the Deep Inlet THA as we conduct cost recovery fishing. Please be prepared to see recovery boats fishing in the SHA concurrently with the rotational fisheries in the THA. This SHA is from Cape Burunof to Sentinel Rock, all of Eastern Channel and up Silver Bay past Bear Cove. If we can fulfill our cost recovery goals outside of the Deep Inlet THA a closure of the THA is not warranted. You can track our Deep Inlet cost recovery goal progress (and all other cost recovery efforts) on the home page of our website.
Good luck fishing this weekend things may get interesting.
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