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To Deep Inlet THA Fishery User Groups:
A reminder about boat traffic and anchoring near island homes in the Deep Inlet area.
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Medvejie Broodstock August 22
Deep Inlet has been closed for 5 days now but few fish have shown up at the head of the inlet. There were a few jumps yesterday but no small or large bodies of fish. The fish were either deep or not there. Medvejie/Bear Cove looks much better, with an estimated 45,000 chum. Chum eggtakes begin tomorrow and I will have another estimate by tonight.
Net pens are being towed to the head of Deep Inlet today and we will have a purse seiner at Deep Inlet this weekend or Monday. If there are fish the seiner will roll them into the net pens. However, if we don’t see fish we will conduct some test sets to determine if they are holding deep or truly not there.
I am confident we will get our broodstock, although it might not happen as quickly as we want. There were 13,000 chum caught on Saturday with a 50/50 sex ratio. Total catch for the week was 50,000. With those pieces of data and a 30-year run history, we know there has to be 100,000 or more fish left in the run.
Anxious but still optimistic.
Medvejie/Deep Inlet Broodstock Report
The estimate of broodstock at Medvejie/Bear Cove as of Wednesday morning is 45,000 chum. The estimate at Deep Inlet, head of bay only is 5,000 to 10,000 and somewhat scattered. I am sure there are more fish at Deep Inlet THA but we need them to concentrate at the head end in order to capture and roll into net pens. We will continue to monitor numbers at both locations daily.
The working plan is to accumulate 90,000 fish between Deep Inlet and Medvejie before we reopen the fisheries. This will be the largest eggtake at Medvejie by a large margin – 85,000,000 eggs (include new Crawfish program and increase for Deep Inlet). We expect to tow about 30,000 fish from Deep Inlet, perhaps more. We have contracted with a seiner to capture the fish which can happen as early as this weekend.
Once the broodstock is secure we will open with a troll day, followed by a seine day and then by gillnet. We will attempt to open on the existing published schedule but we are not locked into that. If it makes more sense to open with troll on a Monday, we will do so. The only regulatory requirement is the gillnet/seine time ratio per week is 1:1, and therefore we may need to go to a 15 hour opening for each to keep it even. Following that, we would move back into the published schedule.
The earliest Deep Inlet will open is likely to be next Tuesday or Wednesday, August 26/27. We will give at least 24 hours notice to the troll opening. Other gears would have more notice.
Deep Inlet Chum Return – Another Challenge
We are weighing whether to close Deep Inlet and surrounding waters to chum fishing. We will be making the decision on Tuesday in order to get an announcement out this week. Currently, we are considering three options:
- Close Deep Inlet THA, south Sitka Sound seine fishery (ADFG authority), and troll non retention (ADFG authority) of chum salmon in south Sitka Sound beginning Thursday.
- Close Deep Inlet THA, south Sitka Sound seine fishery (ADFG authority), and troll non retention (ADFG authority) of chum salmon in south Sitka Sound beginning Sunday.
- Remain open
Medvejie program needs 80,000 brood fish and currently has 12,000. If we close we will accumulate fish until we have enough between Deep Inlet (will net fish and tow to Medvejie) and at Medvejie. Once secure we will reopen.
Hidden Falls Broodstock Update
We had all the chum broodstock necessary to meet our goals – 150,000 adults for 160 million eggs destined for release at Kasnyku (50.5 million), Takatz (50.5 m), SE Cove (35 m), and Deep Inlet (24 m). A set of environmental circumstances has somewhat thwarted our efforts. Before there is any panic, we have 131 million eggs incubating and expect to get more (we took 6 million on Sunday).
Eggtakes began normally in mid July, a little early but not unusual. The low snowfall last winter affected late July freshwater flows at Hidden Falls which we have had to deal with in past years. When the waterfall stops spilling dissolved oxygen plummets particularly in the lagoon where the chum stage just prior to entering the fish ladder. Standard protocol when this occurs is to meter the fish through the weir to a maximum of 10,000 adults, start aeration bubblers, spray water onto the lagoon surface, and redirect some effluent water to the fish ladder. These procedures ameliorate the dissolved oxygen and it has allowed us to manage around the situation in the past. If it were not for needing to meter in the fish we would likely have been able to take 14 million eggs per day as we did last year and get through our egg takes in short order.
However, the result of this, is fewer fish get to the spawning table than would otherwise on a given day. The best fix is rain, which we got after a week, but so much rain that it created flood conditions. Flood conditions can create a different problem. That is, many of the chum can’t swim against the high velocity and they exhaust themselves trying to get past the flooding weir, a several foot drop. The flooding went on for several days but finally subsided. On July 30th we had 110 million eggs in the hatchery and an estimated 50,000 chum in the inner bay and lagoon, more than enough fish to complete the job. The next day the majority of those fish were not to be seen. The estimate fell to 10,000 fish.
Eggtakes numbers dropped off the next several days as expected. Some thought the fish swam away, some thought they might still be there, and some thought our estimates were off, but a dive survey proved that the fish expired and went to the bottom. There were thick piles of dead chum where the currents deposited them within the inner bay behind the barrier net. Mystery solved, but not the problem. We have never experienced low water for a week followed by flooding the next week resulting in the loss of approximately 40,000 brood fish.
Additional fish are coming in and we expect to get another 5 million eggs. We have contacted Port Armstrong and offered to purchase eggs if they have a surplus, but they need another 5 million eggs to meet their goal before they can take eggs for us. Finally, we could take extra eggs at Medvejie if there are surplus. It is too early to know if that is a possibility and is a topic for the next chapter.
The plan to address these circumstances in the future is two redirect some of the coho rearing effluent water via new pipelines and valves to the base of the fish ladder in the lagoon. The effluent water has higher dissolved oxygen but will also be infused with supplemental oxygen as needed. The expectation is the lagoon could handle 15,000 brood fish at times of low flow water conditions with these fixes. The flooding is more difficult to address but another new pipeline slated for installation in 2015 will allow us to waste a large volume of water to the inner bay. This routing of water would circumvent the lagoon and weir, reducing the water volume during floods.
Deep Inlet Lull – Between Summer and Fall Runs
I am dedicating these comments this evening to Botso. He let me know fishermen wanted to hear what is happening with the fall Medvejie run. I probably should have put my thoughts down sooner, so thanks for the encouragement Mr. Eliason. So far 530,000 chum have been caught at Deep Inlet by trollers, gillnetters and seiners; almost all of those are from the Hidden Falls summer run stock (it preformed about double forecast). The real question is ‘will the fall run materialize?’ Naturally, I don’t know but reviewing the historical run timing, there are years when the fall run doesn’t heat up until after August 10th and big catches occur through mid-September. Some very large returns, ’04, ’05, & ’06 unfolded after the stat week ending August 9th. I can’t say this will occur this year, but it does give me some hope. Also we have not seen the summer run perform well above forecast without the fall run coming in strong as well.
This has been a year when summer run chum have under performed at nearly ever facility from PWS to Hidden Falls, mostly due to poor four year old strength. Even DIPAC which had a very strong year, saw four year olds at ~70% of forecast. Contrary to the trend throughout the state was the Deep Inlet summer run, which had good numbers of 4s (~40%) and strong 3s (10 – 15%). This doesn’t mean the fall run will mimic the summer run, but I like to think it is encouraging.
All this said, I am anxious about the run, but I am always anxious. Like you, I know it doesn’t do any good, but I know there is a lot riding on the outcome. You will probably know before I do if the run begins to perk up because you are on the grounds most days with gear in the water. Have a good evening and thank your dedicated board members.
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