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Deep Inlet Notice
To Deep Inlet THA Fishery User Groups:
A reminder about boat traffic and anchoring near island homes in the Deep Inlet area.
Please review our plan:
Berry Island Resident Impact and Noise Reduction Plan
Aug 30th Weekly Update
Cost recovery at Crawfish Inlet and Deep Inlet is currently ongoing. Based up progress this week at both Crawfish Inlet and post closure at Deep Inlet it is extremely unlikely there will be additional common property opportunity at Crawfish Inlet or Deep Inlet this season. Cost recovery progress is currently at 38% for Crawfish Inlet and 79% for Deep Inlet. We will continue to update our web page with daily cost recovery progress until completion.
Total return to date now approximately 6.1 million fish.
Aug 22nd-Deep Inlet THA Closure
The Deep Inlet THA will close to common property fishing beginning on Sunday August 25th to facilitate fall chum brood stock collection and completion of remaining cost recovery. Cost recovery efforts this morning resulted in a harvest of less than 100k lbs., clearly indicating there is insufficient numbers of fish in the the Deep Inlet THA and the Eastern Channel/Silver Bay SHA to make meaningful progress towards our remaining cost recovery goal and allow continued common property opportunity. Additionally, we are closely monitoring chum brood stock numbers at Bear Cove and require the recruitment of an additional 60k fish to meet our brood stock goal of 100k fall chum.
Deep Inlet will remain closed until cost recovery is complete and brood stock needs are secured. Deep Inlet cost recovery progress will be updated daily on our home page.
August 21st Weekly Return Update
Fall chum returns to Deep Inlet this week have been exceptionally strong and current harvest estimates for Stat WK 33 has total chum harvest of just over 1 million fish. This is a record weekly harvest of chum for Deep Inlet with the vast majority of harvest occurring with the seine fisheries in Deep Inlet and Sitka Sound of approximately 890k fish for the week. Troll effort has lessened in the past week for Sitka Sound but good numbers of chum are still being caught by those trollers still participating in the Sitka Sound chum fishery. Troll chum harvest this past week in Sitka Sound was over 100k and trollers have now harvested over 600k chum. With total chum return to Deep Inlet now sitting at approximately 3 million fish there is strong indication this will be a record total return to Deep Inlet. Previous record return year was 1999 when 3.6 million chum returned.
Despite record chum harvest occurring in the Deep Inlet THA and outer Sitka Sound area there has been minimal recruitment to the head of Deep Inlet for cost recovery and Bear Cove for brood stock. Our current estimate of brood at Bear Cove is 30k of the 100k total brood stock goal. This has been driven by greater than 90% interception by the combined gear harvest in the Deep Inlet THA and outer Sitka Sound area. Additionally, the lack of precipitation to move fish towards their release sites has hindered fish movement.
The Deep Inlet THA will be closed Thursday and Friday for cost recovery harvest and we will also begin harvest to acquire brood stock for Bear Cove Friday and Saturday. Harvest is expected to occur in the Silver Bay/Eastern channel SHA beginning as early as Thursday. Harvest will be targeted to minimize impacts to trollers in the area open to both cost recovery and troll in the Eastern Channel/Silver Bay SHA.
Deep Inlet openings next week are dependent on success of cost recovery and brood stock progress the next two days. Unfortunately, a decision to leave Deep Inlet open will have to be made after initial cost recovery/ brood harvest estimates are available mid-morning Friday. A decision will be made by noon Friday at the latest and will be posted here to our website.
Total chum return to date for all NSRAA projects is now approaching 6 million fish.
August 16th Weekly Return Update
Deep Inlet re-opened this week and it has been quite a week with fall chum salmon harvest approaching 700k combined total between the gear groups. With several days left to go in the week and an ongoing Sitka Sound seine pink opening, this weeks chum harvest is approaching record territory and will definitely end up somewhere in the top 3 for all time weekly total. There continues to be a strong chum troll harvest in Sitka Sound this week and will once again top 100k for the third week in a row with total chum troll harvest is approaching 600k for the season. Seine chum harvest this week for Deep Inlet/Sitka Sound is already over 500k and more will be harvested today in Deep Inlet/Sitka Sound and tomorrow in the Sitka Sound seine pink opening. Overall, quite a week for the Deep Inlet project.
Samples from recent Deep Inlet chum harvest indicates we are likely near or at the peak of the return with a 52% male sex ratio. Age of returning is also beginning to shift with more age 3 chum salmon showing up in the catch. Most recent samples from Deep Inlet harvest indicate approximately 2%-5’s, 70%-4’s and 25% 3’s. Size has also dropped to approximately 6.3lbs average.
Current weather patterns of calm winds and sunny skies will likely minimize the movement of chum into Bear Cove for brood stock as well as into the Deep Inlet THA. We will attempt to maximize cost recovery effort next week at the head of Deep Inlet as well as the Eastern Channel/Silver Bay SHA. The Eastern Channel SHA reopens for cost recovery harvest on August 20th and the Deep Inlet THA will be closed Thursday and Friday next week to facilitate cost recovery efforts.
Chum returns to Crawfish Inlet continue with ongoing cost recovery in the inlet and today is the second seine pink salmon opening in West Crawfish. The first seine opening earlier this week in West Crawfish resulted in the harvest of 123k chum salmon.
Total return to date has now topped 5 million chum salmon.
August 8th, Weekly Return Update-Deep Inlet to Re-Open Saturday Aug 10th
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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