July 25th Weekly Return Update

This past week summer chum returns continue to decline and it appears most, if not all, summer chum sites are experiencing an earlier than typical end to the run.  While we are in the final week to 10 days until the last of the summer chum make it home we have just passed the 3 million fish mark for the season. This number includes common property, brood stock and cost recovery. It is anticipated that we will likely end up near our preseason forecast of 3.5 million summer stock chum. SE Cove is the only site to surpass their preseason forecast so far.

Hidden Falls egg take is proceeding smoothly and will likely be wrapped up mid-next week. One of the earliest chum egg take completion dates at Hidden Falls. We have secured sufficient brood stock and plan on finishing up the Hidden Falls cost recovery Friday (7/25). Once cost recovery is complete we will open Kasnyku Bay for common property seine harvest for the rest of the season. This will most likely be this coming Sunday (7/28).

We were unable to obtain a sample from the Point Gardner and Kingsmill test fisheries this week but the chum portion of those catches continue to be above the long term average particularly at Point Gardner which was significantly above the average. Both sites indicated a 42% male ratio.

Deep Inlet cost recovery continues but at a diminished rate as we are at the tail end of the summer return and the fall chums have yet to move into Deep Inlet in large numbers. Cost recovery effort will continue tomorrow and early next week.  Currently we are at 54% complete. Deep Inlet will continue to be closed through next week and reopening options will be considered for stat week 32.

Otolith samples this week indicate 10-15% of the chum in Deep Inlet and Bear Cove are fall chum. A sample from the Sitka Sound chum troll effort on Tuesday (7/23) and indicated 80% of the Sitka Sound chum are fall stock. The male ratio was 78% and a 6.5lb average. This week the Sitka Sound chum troll effort and harvest increased dramatically and they may harvest 40-50k fish this week. This indicates a good volume of chum in the sound but they do not appear to be in a hurry to move into Deep Inlet.  Interestingly a sample from the Redoubt seine fishery collected on the same day indicated 90% summer stock chum still present, so there are still some summer chum moving north on the beach into Deep Inlet.

While there are signs of fall chum in Sitka Sound and Deep Inlet we have yet to see any Crawfish fall chum arrive. They typically arrive slightly later than the Deep Inlet release site and expect them to begin to make an appearance next week.