Summer chum returns this past week have appeared to plateau to both Deep Inlet and Hidden Falls. This may be in part due the current dry and sunny weather, but we have also seen a continued decline in male sex ratios with both Deep Inlet and Hidden Falls summer chum returns approaching 60% male. This leveling off on the return to Deep Inlet has slowed our cost recovery harvest and to date we have only managed to harvest 20% of our goal. Due to this slower pace, management actions are necessary to ensure we meet our cost recovery goal for the Sitka area.
Deep Inlet will close to common property fishing at the end of the gillnet rotation Wednesday, July 10th, and remain closed until the Sitka area cost recovery is mostly complete. This may be as short as a week but will be determined by harvestable volume available to the cost recovery boats in the Deep Inlet THA and the Eastern Channel/Silver Bay SHA. Progress towards our goal is available on the homepage of our website under the header In-Season Harvest Data-Cost Recovery. Deep Inlet will likely reopen on a Wednesday for troll then roll into the normal rotation with a Thursday/Friday seine day.
NSRAA obtained a chum sample from the Friday July 5th Kingsmill test fishery. The chum harvest in this test fishery was a record for the stat week and was comprised of 25% Hidden Falls, 15% DIPAC, 28% SE Cove, 10% Thomas Bay and 6% Gunnuk Creek. The second Kingsmill test fishery is occurring today with once again a strong chum component, the next Point Garnder test fishery will occur on Tuesday July 9th. The second Hawk Inlet test fishery occurred on July 5th and the chum portion of the harvest was 147% of the 10-year average. A breakdown of the composition of the chum catch in the Hawk Inlet test fishery should be available Tuesday. Reminder all test fishery chum otolith information can be found at https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5485 .
SE Cove and Thomas Bay returns continue to build and harvest to date is continuing to increase with an estimated cumulative harvest at SE Cove of 100k and a cumulative harvest to date of 50k in Thomas Bay. These returns appear to be tracking more on the historical return timing with the peak week towards the end of July.
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