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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
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.
Aug 2 Weekly Return Update-Deep Inlet Tentative Re-Opening schedule
The NSRAA Executive Committee met on Friday Aug 2 to discuss current Deep Inlet cost recovery progress and to develop a tentative Deep Inlet re-opening schedule. Barring unforeseen lack of progress on cost recovery this coming week Deep Inlet will re-open on Saturday Aug 10th to Troll. In order to equalize the 1:1 required net ratio for the Deep Inlet gillnet/seine rotation the following fishing schedule will occur for Stat Week 32 into Stat Week 33.
Sat Aug 10th Troll, Sun-Mon Aug 11th-12th Seine, Tue-Wed Aug 13th-14th gillnet. After August 14th the weekly Deep Inlet rotation will return to the pre-closure daily schedule.
The fall chum salmon return to Deep Inlet continues to have record troll harvest and combined with the Thursday Aug 1 seine pink salmon opening in Sitka Sound indicates a large abundance of chum have moved into Eastern Channel and the near shore Sitka Sound Area. The troll fleet has now harvested nearly 200k chum in the last 12 days. Two record weeks for troll harvest in a row for the stat weeks. Last weeks total has been revised upward to 77k and the total for this stat week is already at 100k with several days to go. It appears the main body of chum have moved further into the outer Deep Inlet THA area and into Eastern Channel. The seine harvest for yesterdays pink opening in the sound was 100k pink salmon and 70k chum salmon. Based upon this large body of fish moving in we anticipate being able to make substantial cost recovery progress over the next week.
The fall chum return to Crawfish Inlet has also recently moved in and cost recovery has begun in Crawfish Inlet. There are also some chum in West Crawfish at this point in time but there has been little troll effort in West Crawfish due to better fishing in the Sitka Sound area. It is anticipated that most of the return to Crawfish Inlet will go to cost recovery if the return comes in at our pre-season forecast of 1.3 million chum salmon. There may be seine opportunity late in the season if return comes in at or above our pre-season forecast.
Yesterday we completed our summer chum egg take goals at Hidden Falls and Medvejie. Hidden Falls will be closed to common property seine fishing for the remainder of the season. The few remaining summer chum to return to Hidden Falls will be taken for cost recovery to reduce the deficit of the cost recovery goal at SE Cove/Gunnuk Creek. We had anticipated a majority of the SE Cove/Gunnuk Creek cost recovery would come from Gunnuk Creek and that is the only location to come in significantly under forecast and will likely end up less than half of forecast.
Total chum returns to date has now topped 3.5 million.
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.
July 17th Weekly Return Update
Summer chum returns to the Sitka Area this past week have declined since the gillnet closure. The gillnet fleet ended last week (St Wk 28) with their best weekly harvest this season of just over 48k chum salmon and a total weekly Deep Inlet combined harvest of 200k chum harvest between seine, gillnet and cost recovery. This is a 90k weekly drop from prior week. Returns to Hidden Falls last week of summer chum plateaued with the previous week and a weekly harvest of 228k chum. Of note for Hidden Falls is that the male ratio went up from 51% male to 66% male from previous week. We confirmed this with processors as this is an unusual shift in ratio for this point of the return. Next several openings at Hidden Falls will indicate what this shift means in overall return numbers. Seine opening line restrictions around Kasnyku Bay have begun at Hidden Falls and will continue until brood stock is secured and cost recovery fishing is completed. To date we have secured approximately 1/3 of brood needs and chum are recruiting volitionally through the barrier net in increasing numbers.
Chum returns to SE Cove and Thomas Bay continued to increase last week with a weekly harvest of 65k and 90k respectively. Both Thomas Bay and SE Cove continue to have male sex ratios in excess of 50% with SE Cove sample from July 14th showing 70% male.
Samples of Point Augusta fisheries, along with Point Gardner and Kingsmill test fisheries continue to indicate a significant presence of Hidden Falls and SE Cove bound chum. Though the most recent samples indicate a drop to less than 50% male in those fisheries. Test Fishing otolith data is available on our website under the 2024 Fishing tab. Link here https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5485
Deep Inlet closed to commercial fishing on Thursday July 11th to allow completion of cost recovery. Since the closure approximately 165k chum salmon have been harvested putting cost recovery progress near 50% complete. Harvest for cost recovery significantly declined in the last two days and the reopening of Deep Inlet will be delayed until next Wednesday July 24th as the potential earliest reopening date. The reopening will depend on cost recovery progress. It appears that we are on the tail end of the summer chum run with recent sex ratios in cost recovery harvest of only 38% male. To date the fall run chum have yet to make much of an appearance only making up 2% of the last sample from July 12th.
SE Cove will close to common property fisheries after this Thursday’s (July 18th) seine opening to facilitate cost recovery. To date we have only harvested 16% of the combined cost recovery goal between SE Cove and Gunnuk Creek. This is mainly due to the Gunnuk Creek return coming in significantly below forecast.
NSRAA will work to harvest the remaining cost recovery volume as quickly as possible and the front page of our website will show our progress on the Sitka Area and SE Cove cost recovery progress bars. These progress bars are updated daily as cost recovery occurs.
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