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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
July 8th Weekly Return Update-Deep Inlet Closure
Summer chum returns this past week have appeared to plateau to both Deep Inlet and Hidden Falls. This may be in part due the current dry and sunny weather, but we have also seen a continued decline in male sex ratios with both Deep Inlet and Hidden Falls summer chum returns approaching 60% male. This leveling off on the return to Deep Inlet has slowed our cost recovery harvest and to date we have only managed to harvest 20% of our goal. Due to this slower pace, management actions are necessary to ensure we meet our cost recovery goal for the Sitka area.
Deep Inlet will close to common property fishing at the end of the gillnet rotation Wednesday, July 10th, and remain closed until the Sitka area cost recovery is mostly complete. This may be as short as a week but will be determined by harvestable volume available to the cost recovery boats in the Deep Inlet THA and the Eastern Channel/Silver Bay SHA. Progress towards our goal is available on the homepage of our website under the header In-Season Harvest Data-Cost Recovery. Deep Inlet will likely reopen on a Wednesday for troll then roll into the normal rotation with a Thursday/Friday seine day.
NSRAA obtained a chum sample from the Friday July 5th Kingsmill test fishery. The chum harvest in this test fishery was a record for the stat week and was comprised of 25% Hidden Falls, 15% DIPAC, 28% SE Cove, 10% Thomas Bay and 6% Gunnuk Creek. The second Kingsmill test fishery is occurring today with once again a strong chum component, the next Point Garnder test fishery will occur on Tuesday July 9th. The second Hawk Inlet test fishery occurred on July 5th and the chum portion of the harvest was 147% of the 10-year average. A breakdown of the composition of the chum catch in the Hawk Inlet test fishery should be available Tuesday. Reminder all test fishery chum otolith information can be found at https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=5485 .
SE Cove and Thomas Bay returns continue to build and harvest to date is continuing to increase with an estimated cumulative harvest at SE Cove of 100k and a cumulative harvest to date of 50k in Thomas Bay. These returns appear to be tracking more on the historical return timing with the peak week towards the end of July.
June 29th Weekly Return Update
Summer chum returns to Hidden Falls and Deep Inlet continue to be strong and continue to track at or above the high range of our forecast for both sites. Harvest this past week (stat wk 26) for Hidden Falls was 220k fish with Deep Inlet coming in at an estimated 285k. Hidden Falls chum returns this past week have been 70% male and a 6.5lb avg with 60% 4-year-olds and 30% 5-year-olds. Deep Inlet chum returns this past week have been coming in 60% male and also a 6.5lb avg with more than 90% 4-year-olds. Common property opening lines will continue to be the same for both sites for Sunday. Hidden Falls lines may be moved away from Kasnyku for the Thursday opener depending on volume remaining in Kasnyku after Sunday. Will begin to accumulate brood stock behind the barrier net next week at Hidden Falls with a total brood stock need of 215k fish.
SE Cove and Thomas Bay returns continue to increase but still on the slow side compared to Hidden Falls and Deep Inlet. SE Cove has an estimated common property harvest of 20k chum to date. Typically SE Cove chum returns will begin to ramp up toward the end of the coming week. Thomas Bay harvest has been minimal with little effort. As with SE Cove the Thomas Bay site returns should begin to build towards the end of next week.
NSRAA obtained a chum sample from the Wednesday June 25th Point Gardner test fishery. The chum harvest in this test fishery was a record for the stat week and was comprised of 71% Hidden Falls, 8% DIPAC, 8% SE Cove, 4% Thomas Bay and 2% Gunnuk Creek. The next Point Garnder test fishery will occur on Monday July 1st with the first Kingsmill test fishery on Tuesday July 2nd. The first Hawk Inlet test fishery occurred on June 28th and the chum portion of the harvest was 225% of the 10-year average. A breakdown of the composition of the chum catch in the Hawk Inlet test fishery should be available Monday.
Cost recovery continues at all sites and will continue without common property closures through next week as the returns continue to build and cost recovery volume is trending the right direction. Cost recovery for the Sitka area will begin in the outer Eastern Channel/Silver Bay Special Harvest Area this week beginning on Monday July 1st.
June 21st, Weekly Return Update
This past week summer chum returns to Hidden Falls and Deep Inlet continue to be strong and the first reported harvest at SE Cove which is tracking on the historical high side of return numbers for current stat week. Hidden Falls and Deep Inlet continue to be majority 4-year-olds making up over 79% of harvest at Hidden Falls and over 90% for Deep Inlet. Hidden Falls will have an estimated 75K total adult chum harvest this week and Deep Inlet will come in around 100k after today’s seine harvest is complete. The chum harvest at Hidden Falls this stat week will be the third highest on record since the beginning of the program.
Sunday’s Pt Augusta chum harvest otolith information indicated 52% Hidden Falls bound chum and 30% DIPAC chum. The remaining sample was 12% Thomas Bay, 4% SE Cove and 1% for Gunnuk Creek. As with most sites Augusta harvest was heavy on the 4-year-olds which made up 74% of catch and a 68% male ratio.
Cost recovery harvest is beginning today (Fri 6/21) at Hidden Falls and will begin Saturday at Bear Cove and head of Deep Inlet. Hidden Falls cost recovery will be in inner Kasnyku Bay behind our barrier net as well in outer Kasnyku. Lines for common property seine Sunday at Hidden Falls will be the same as Thursday’s opener. Deep Inlet proper will remain closed until cost recovery is completed which will likely be mid-July.
Deep Inlet Cost Recovery Closure Reminder-June 19th
Reminder that Deep Inlet proper from the neck to the head is currently closed to common property fishing to allow for cost recovery harvest. The line coordinates are covered in the April 25th ADFG Advisory Announcement. Excerpt below of the relevant coordinates and Full Advisory Announcement may be found here- ADFG Terminal Harvest Area AA 4/25/24
June 14th, Weekly Return Update
This week summer run chum return numbers to Deep Inlet are rapidly increasing. Last week things began to look promising as the Gillnet chum harvest was over 3,500 fish. This overall isn’t a large number but when put in context is more than double the previous stat week record in 2015 of 1,500 fish. This week will blow the previous record out of the water and we may be on track to break 50,000 chum harvest for stat week 24, previous record was 10,800. This will be 5 times the previous 2015 stat week record and begins to put us on track for the high end or our pre-season forecast. While it is still very early in the summer chum return, things are looking very encouraging that the return will come in above our pre-season forecast of 1.4 million chum salmon returning to Deep Inlet and Bear Cove. Of the Deep Inlet chum harvest to date there is a roughly 50/50 split between chum bound for Deep Inlet and Bear Cove which also tracks with our pre-season forecast.
Now the million fish question for Deep Inlet is whether the summer chum run is early, early and large, or just large. The next week or two will answer that question for Deep Inlet.
This Sunday will be the first seine opening at Hidden Falls, SE Cove and Thomas Bay. At Hidden Falls we have several thousand chum already on the barrier net and some scattered schools in Kasnyku Bay. This is the earliest we have seen this number of chum in many years. There are also reports of fish in the outer Hidden Falls THA and also some working their way down Catherine Island. The Sunday seine opener will shed some light on if the Hidden Falls return will follow the strong early return we are currently seeing at Deep Inlet. SE Cove and Thomas Bay summer chum returns tend to come in a week or so after the Hidden Falls returns start and we do not have any reports of chum building in those THA’s yet.
Mid next week we will likely begin cost recovery harvest in Bear Cove and the head of Deep Inlet. Cost recovery harvest will continue in these areas at least up until July 1st when we will begin cost recovery harvest in the Eastern Channel/Silver Bay Special Harvest Area (SHA). We will continue to have rotational fisheries in the Deep Inlet THA as we conduct cost recovery fishing. Please be prepared to see recovery boats fishing in the SHA concurrently with the rotational fisheries in the THA. This SHA is from Cape Burunof to Sentinel Rock, all of Eastern Channel and up Silver Bay past Bear Cove. If we can fulfill our cost recovery goals outside of the Deep Inlet THA a closure of the THA is not warranted. You can track our Deep Inlet cost recovery goal progress (and all other cost recovery efforts) on the home page of our website.
Good luck fishing this weekend things may get interesting.
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