Deep Inlet will re-open Saturday August 10th to troll. The ADFG announcement will be coming out later today. Please pay particular attention to the ADFG announcement as seine and gillnet days will be altered from standard schedule next week and the following weeks until cost recovery is completed. The Fishing schedule has been altered next week (stat wk 33) to even up the required 1:1 net rotation and has been altered for the following weeks to allow increased opportunity for completion of cost recovery. As occurred pre-closure, Deep Inlet proper will be closed at the entrance to the inlet.
Deep Inlet fishing schedule Aug 10th to August 17th.
Sat-Troll, Sun-Mon Seine, Tue-Wed Gillnet, Thur-Fri Seine.
Deep Inlet fishing schedule August 18th-Sept 20th or upon completion of cost recovery.
Sat-Troll, Sun-Seine, Mon-Tue Gillnet, Wed-Seine, Closed Thur-Fri for cost recovery.
We have made marginal progress on cost recovery this past week and are currently at 62% of goal. The current weather pattern is holding fish offshore and in deeper water severely limiting cost recovery progress and movement of fish into the Deep Inlet THA. The strong offshore troll catch of Deep Inlet bound chum continues though some of the effort has moved to Crawfish Inlet. Sitka Sound trollers continue to see record per boat daily harvest numbers though total numbers of boats has tapered. The interception of Deep Inlet bound chum by the seine fleet in the Sitka Sound pink seine opening has dropped the past Mon-Tue opening with a total of 30k chum harvested over the two day opening, further indicating a lack of movement of chum into the Deep Inlet THA. Until there is a change in weather patterns there will likely be minimal chum movement into the THA.
While the movement of chum into the THA has been minimal, total chum harvest for last week was 319k fish. This number is quite large considering that the Deep Inlet THA had zero common property contribution. Once again as with the summer chum run it appears the fall run is early and time will tell what the total run size will be. It is almost certainly going to be above our pre-season projection of 1 million fall chum but without the traditional Deep Inlet THA common property harvest very difficult to project at this time.
Keep in mind that while Deep Inlet will be re-opening Saturday there may be additional closures and/or restrictions in time and area to meet cost recovery and or brood stock needs. As much notice as possible will be provided for any alterations to the Deep Inlet common property fisheries.
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