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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
WK 31 Return Update
Returns in stat week 31 continued to be poor and below forecast for fall chum salmon at Deep Inlet. Historically stat week 31 is when the fall chum run catch begins to increase at Deep Inlet. This past week in stat wk 31 the catch actually dropped from week 30. Beginning on Saturday, July 31, strong troll catches of chum started to develop in Sitka Sound and continued into the first few days of the current stat week 32. There was considerable troll effort in the sound Monday through today but indications are per boat catch has dropped with the increased effort and change from calm sunny weather to overcast and rain. I was anticipating a pick up in the Deep Inlet catch this week in the net fisheries based upon the observations in the sound but that has yet to materialize. Concerns on run strength will increase substantially if we do not begin to see indications of a steady increase in run strength. Sitka Sound chum troll catch was sampled on Sunday Aug, 1 with 47% Deep Inlet origin, 30% Bear Cove/Medvejie Hatchery release and 15% Crawfish Inlet release. Age breakdown overall was ~12% 3-year olds, ~12% 5-year olds with 75% 4-year olds, 72% male and 7.8lb average. These numbers give me better confidence in where we are at in the run but the lack of volume is concerning.
West Crawfish started to show some potential last week for trollers then the bite tapered off and most of the trollers in West Crawfish moved up to Sitka sound over the weekend. There are still some in West Crawfish but the numbers have not built back up to where they were last week. Continue to have reports of fish in the outer portions of West Crawfish but no volume has moved into the Cedar Pass area or into Crawfish Inlet proper. We began cost recovery this morning in Crawfish Inlet at the head and have only harvested an estimated 76k lbs of chum.
We have nearly completed our summer run chum eggtake at all of our facilities. Chum eggtakes at Hidden Falls and Medvejie are complete with Hidden Falls making up a shortfall of 12 million of the 30 million goal at Medvejie. There are few summer chum left at Medvejie and we are beginning to see a few of the early fall chum beginning to mix in with the remaining summers. At Gunnuk we are currently 75% complete of our 20 million goal and with recent rain sufficient brood appear to making their way into the hatchery. If we fall short at Gunnuk Creek we are prepared to take additional at Hidden Falls if necessary. While it is great to make our brood stock goals there was insufficient returns to Hidden Falls to allow a commercial seine opening this year.
NSRAA project coho return troll catches have slowly ramped up beginning in stat week 29 and a weekly contribution of ~2,500 in stat week 31, with Deer Lake leading our projects in total catch with ~3,000 to date and ~7,000 overall for NSRAA. Once again the SSRAA Klawock Hatchery coho program is showing a great return this season with over 25,000 contributed to the troll fisheries so far. With such high coho prices this year I am hopeful that we will see a decent contribution from NSRAA to the troll fleet in the upcoming few weeks.
WK 30 Return Update
Summer chum egg takes are well underway at Hidden Falls, Gunnuk Creek and Medvejie hatchery. By Wednesday we are 75% complete at Hidden Falls, 50% complete at Gunnuk Creek and 40% complete at Medvejie. Currently Medvejie appears to be on the tail end of their summer chum recruitment and will like be short of their 30m goal by ~8m. Both Hidden Falls and Gunnuk Creek look like our pre-season brood stock escapement goals will be met. Unfortunately both of those facilities are running greater than 60% male, which on a normal year would indicate we are less than halfway through the return. This year though we have seen a sharp drop off on chum returns and will not likely reach a 50/50 sex ratio on the overall chum returns at those two facilities, similar to last year. A shortfall at Medvejie will be backfilled from Hidden Falls or Gunnuk Creek assuming brood is available.
Returns of fall chum are just now beginning to show up. This past week the catch at Deep Inlet has seen a slow increase and the sex ratio has climbed back up from a low of 39% male in stat wk 29 to 68% male in stat wk 30. There are a few early Crawfish Inlet chum beginning to return to the area with several trollers working the outer West Crawfish area this week. Currently there are scattered jumps in the outer West Crawfish area with little sign further east in West Crawfish or the Crawfish Inlet SHA. Cost Recovery in Crawfish Inlet will begin next week, likely on Wednesday or Thursday and continue until the goal is achieved. Progress toward the goal can be tracked at the following web page link:https: //www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5448
WK 29 Return Update
Returns of summer chum to NSRAA remote release sites through stat week 29 continues to be poor and all indications to date are that we will be at or well below the low range of our preseason summer chum forecast. Catches at Thomas Bay and SE Cove this past week, were weak with few boats at each site. The only positive indicator is that both sites are still running above 55% male but the combined cumulative catch to date of the two is less than 50k fish total. We continue to see a slow building of chum at Gunnuk Creek and yesterday was the first day NSRAA has had the fish ladder on and fish have made it up into the raceways. We anticipate beginning egg takes at Gunnuk Creek Tuesday this week. Our pre-season summer chum egg take goal at Gunnuk is 20 million eggs. I hope that our first egg take effort at Gunnuk Creek goes as smooth as possible and the recruitment up the creek to the hatchery is without issues.
Weekly test fishing has continued at Hidden Falls. Last week we saw our average catch per set drop from 300 per set to 150. This was discouraging for staff and the cost recovery vessel as we had several positive reports of large numbers of fish in the Hidden Falls THA. These estimates ranged from 40k to 200k in the entire THA. Such large variation in estimates makes it challenging to predict the overall strength of the return to date and make decisions on when we have sufficient brood stock. Earlier today (Monday) we initiated an additional test fishing effort and have observed quite a change in volume. The initial 5 sets averaged ~900 fish per set. Several additional sets were made to the south of Kasnyku Bay with some being quite large. Today’s test fishing effort puts us close to halfway through the cost recovery cap for the Hidden Falls test fishing. We are closely monitoring brood stock numbers to Hidden Falls and will likely make an additional test fishing effort later this week. There is growning indicators that the HF chum are returning from the south end of Chatham instead of the more recent trend of from the north. This is being seen in the Test Fishery data at Hawk Inlet, Pt Gardner and Kingsmill (data available at: https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5485 , with cost recovery/test set info at : https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5448) . Yesterday we began egg takes at Hidden Falls with a total pre-season goal of 140 million eggs. Once we are assured we have brood stock secured we will begin common property openings on any surplus.
Deep Inlet has really slowed this week and effort has dropped to very few boats of either net fleet. It looks like we just hit the low point of our pre-season forecast for summer chum at Deep Inlet and they are now sharply falling off the curve. We continue to see very few 5-year olds and the sex ratio has dropped to 39% male. There has been little sign of the fall chum showing up yet although the 5-year old percentage did tick up a few points from 1% week before to 4% of catch last week. Egg takes began Friday last week at Medvejie on the summer Hidden Falls stock chum with a little less than half of the 30k of what we need for brood visible in Bear Cove. Goal at Medvejie is 30 million summer stock chum.
Overall summer chum returns continue to be poor but it is looking better for brood at our 3 summer stock chum sites, Hidden Falls, Gunnuk Creek and Medvejie. This next week will be critical as we will have egg takes underway at all 3 facilities meeting egg take goals and balancing brood stock numbers between them as well.
Test Fisheries Statistics
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G) conducts several test fisheries in Northern Southeast Alaska each year, as a means to assess pink and chum salmon abundance returning to the region. These test fisheries are conducted once per week by vessels contracted with the state, for a period of five to six weeks. NSRAA is interested in the origin of chum salmon intercepted in these test fisheries and cooperates with ADF&G and fish processors to collect otolith samples for each test fishery. Otoliths are read by both NSRAA and DIPAC and these preliminary results are used to make inferences of run strength and timing for various enhanced fisheries in the region.
2021 Test Fisheries: PAGE
WK 28 Return Update
Summer chum returns through Stat week 28 continue to be slow and are trending at or below the low range of the forecast at all of our sites. Historically this week (wk 29), would be the peak of the catch. Sex ratio data on the summer chum indicates we are following that historical timeline and the returns will be weak and less than forecast. We continue to see virtually no 5-year olds at any of our sites and the chum return is over 95% 4-year olds. Additionally the 4-year olds are small with a 6lb or less average.
While the test fisheries at Pt Gardner and Kingsmill are indicating a stronger chum catch than the recent 10-year long term average, we are not seeing this translate to increased catches at SE Cove or Thomas Bay yet. The first Pt Gardner test fishery was over 90% hatchery chum with greater than 55% being Hidden Falls bound, and ~10% for both Gunnuk Creek and Thomas Bay, with SE Cove making up about 5% of the catch. We are currently reading last weeks test fisheries chum otoliths and will post that information once it is available. Last week we did have a increase in the cost recovery catch at Gunnuk Creek (35k lbs) which is encouraging but still weaker than expected based on forecast. We have suspended cost recovery at Gunnuk this week to allow sufficient numbers for chum brood stock to build. We will still perform the Hidden Falls test fishing this Wednesday as we continue to monitor and gauge the strength of the return for brood stock to that facility.
On the Sitka side of Baranof, Deep Inlet chum are tracking near the low point of our return forecast with the sex ratio flipping to more females at the end of last week. We are seeing more summer chum at Medvejie and it looks like we will begin egg takes toward the end of this week. Current estimates are for ~7k chum in the area with a brood stock goal of 30k. This will be the second year of Hidden Falls summer chum egg takes at Medvejie. These eggs will be taken at Medvejie then transferred to Hidden Falls for release at SE Cove or Thomas Bay. Chinook returns to Medvejie continue to be strong and will certainly be above forecast. We are continuing with cost recovery as brood stock has been secured and fish continue to return to the cove. To date we have harvested over 1,000 Chinook for cost recovery from Bear Cove and they are still being picked up in Deep Inlet with over a 1,000 harvested there in week 28 between the two net fleets.
Fall chum have yet to show up at Deep Inlet and it is too early to gauge any information on how that return, or the Crawfish Inlet fall chum return, is going to shape up.
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