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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
NSRAA Scholarship Reminder
Each year NSRAA awards three $2500 scholarships.
Applications are due soon – check it out!
Support Alaska Hatcheries at Board of Fisheries
Alaska Board of Fisheries Proposal 156 is bad for Southeast Alaska Residents (and visitors) who rely on our long standing hatchery programs. Your voice is needed.
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.
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