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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.
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Berry Island Resident Impact and Noise Reduction Plan
August 11th Return Update
This week the major news is the historic drop in chum salmon prices to .20 by most large processors (Chart for SEAK below) and the continued very large pink salmon seine harvest in SE Alaska. This combination of drop in chum price and increase in pink salmon abundance has led to greatly reduced seine effort in Deep Inlet. Effort in the Sitka Sound troll fishery and in Crawfish Inlet has also dramatically declined since Monday due to the drop in price. This drop in troll effort is also being exasperated by NSRAA’s request of the closure of Sitka Sound to chum retention during the Coho closure due to brood stock concerns at Bear Cove. We continue to have concerns for brood stock numbers for Bear Cove and continue to plan on closure of Deep Inlet to all harvest beginning on Saturday Aug 19 for Troll and from Aug 20th to Aug 25th for the net fisheries. We will continue to evaluate return numbers to Deep Inlet and Bear Cove over the weekend but barring some unlikely dramatic turn of events will work with ADFG to issue announcement early next week.
For the few troll fishermen sticking it out in West Crawfish Inlet with the low prices the catch has been very good and there are indications of a large push of chum moving into outer West Crawfish and towards the four corners area. Initial chum otolith samples from troll effort in West Crawfish indicate 90% male, 80% 4-year olds and 6.7lb average weight. NSRAA will have cost recovery boats in Crawfish Inlet beginning Monday Aug 14th. I anticipate the rain forecast for this weekend will get harvestable numbers of chum moving through Cedar Pass and into the inlet. This will be the first cost recovery effort of the season in Crawfish Inlet.
Sitka Sound Area Troll Closure
Despite the recent reduction in harvest effort for Sitka Sound and Deep Inlet, NSRAA remains concerned over the lack of Bear Cove four-year-olds returning to Medvejie in 2023. Preseason run projections indicated a severe shortage for this age class (likely due to juvenile black cod predation in spring of 2020) and in-season analysis reveals this to be true. Despite higher than anticipated 3-year-old survival, brood stock goals will depend on the larger females from brood year 2019. At the direction of the NSRAA board of directors, NSRAA staff requested ADF&G to issue the following non retention period in Sitka Sound.
“…the waters of the Sitka Sound Terminal Harvest chum salmon troll fishery (113-41) will be closed to troll gear during the 2-day troll fishery closure from 12:01 a.m., August 9, through 11:59 p.m., August 10, 2023. This closure is being implemented in order to meet chum salmon brood stock goals at the Medvejie Creek Hatchery. These waters will reopen to troll gear with the start of the second Chinook salmon retention period, 12:01 a.m., August 11, 2023. For all other troll hatchery chum salmon opportunities during the closure, refer to the August 4 troll advisory announcement.”
Aug 4th Return Update
Today Hidden Falls completed their chum egg take with a total of 265k fish through the hatchery and a total of 210 million eggs taken making this the largest ever chum egg take at Hidden Falls. This record number assures all existing summer stock chum programs will have their full complement of green eggs going into incubation. This number includes an additional 40 million chum that will be incubated at Hidden Falls and released at Takatz, in the Hidden Falls THA, next spring. This new production is the result of collaboration with Armstrong Keta and are being released on their behalf. Egg takes were also wrapped up on summer chum yesterday at Gunnuk Creek and Medvejie. At Medvejie we have had a record number of summer chum returning to Bear Cove and to date have processed over 40k adults with more summer chum 3-year olds still arriving.
Initial fall chum otolith samples taken this week in the Sitka Sound troll fishery indicate that 17% of the harvest this week outside of Deep Inlet are still summer stock 3-year old chum. We have seen a record number of 3-year old summer stock chum this season at Deep Inlet and Hidden Falls. While it is still too early to forecast next years summer chum return, we are confident that it will be very strong for both Deep Inlet and Hidden Falls. The initial otolith samples this week also indicate that our forecast for Bear Cove bound 4-year old fall chum may be accurate and continues to give concern on making our brood stock needs at the hatchery. These samples also give an early indication that the Deep Inlet bound chum 4-year old’s are out performing the high end of our forecast. While this is great news for fishermen and potential brood needs, a closure of Deep Inlet still appears necessary for the net fleets beginning on Aug 20th. Additionally, if the Bear Cove bound portion of the fall chum run continue to track forecast we will request ADFG not allow chum retention in Sitka Sound during the summer coho closure next week. We are obtaining additional otolith samples from this weekends seine fishery and Sitka Sound troll deliveries to inform that decision. There will still be chum troll opportunity during the closure in the West Crawfish area.
Cost recovery at SE Cove is pretty much wrapped up. We will be making one last effort there this coming Sunday/Monday in order to clean up what remains but harvest will likely be less than 200k lbs. Currently we are at 51% of our SE Cove goal.
While both size and price of chum salmon this season is disappointing, both things we have no control over, as fishermen and an organization that depends upon being optimistic for the future, next year is looking like there will be great chum return numbers.
July 28th Return Update
The chum return to Hidden Falls continues to progress well and we are likely nearing the end of the return and through yesterday the seine fleet have harvested an estimated 800k chum salmon and including brood stock number we have topped a 1 million fish return. This is the largest return since 2013, and if we top 1.38 million by the end, unlikely, this would be the largest Hidden Falls return since 2009. Last sex ratio sample from Sunday (7/23) had a 35% male ratio and fish behavior in the THA definitely feels like we are nearing the end. Fish are not lingering outside of Kasnyku Bay and not venturing very far off of the barrier net. Currently we believe we have sufficient brood inside of the barrier net to complete our egg take and will leave closed unless we appear to be short in the next few days. Staff at Hidden Falls have been working extremely hard and fast through the fish this year and by early to mid next week chum egg take should be complete. The next seine opening at Hidden Falls will be Monday, not Sunday, as the seine fishing day rotation has started and moving the opening to Monday will align with other open areas nearby. We will be moving the line in closer to the barrier net in an effort to provide as much opportunity as possible without jeopardizing site infrastructure.
SE Cove Cost recovery continues and we had the largest weekly harvest to date of approximately 600k lbs earlier this week. Sample from earlier this week showed 42% male indicating nearing the end and we are currently at 49% of goal. CR effort will continue Saturday and Sunday but it is clear we will be short of our goal for SE Cove. Knowing we were looking at a shortage at SE Cove and having a strong return to Hidden Falls I reached out to processors to potentially offer additional CR opportunity at Hidden Falls. For over a week I have attempted to find a processor interested in those fish. Not a single processor has had interest in any surplus at Hidden Falls at any price. Not only are they not interested in any HF surplus there appears to be no interest in additional CR opportunity at Crawfish Inlet to make up the shortfall. Since I have been the GM this has never occurred and is a very troubling development. I will continue to look for interest in CR opportunity at HF, Medvejie and Crawfish Inlet but the potential to make up for the shortfall at SE Cove appears to be slim to none. It is now imperative that the fall chum Crawfish Inlet return come in, at or above forecast, so we can at least make our west Baranof cost recovery $4.1m goal.
This lack of interest in our fish is not likely news for commercial fishermen as recently several processors have lowered their in-season chum price for seine fish. My concern looking forward to the fall return just starting is that this price lowering will begin to be felt by the gillnet and troll fleet, especially if the return to Deep Inlet and Crawfish Inlet is larger than forecast. We are just beginning to see indications of the fall chum return showing up to Deep Inlet, and the 7/25 Sitka Sound chum troll sample indicates the strong 3-year old component we saw in the summer chum return, may be occurring in the fall stock also. The samples from the Deep Inlet seine harvest over this coming weekend will be an indicator on return volume and early return age composition of the fall chum stock.
July 21st Return Update
Returns to Hidden Falls have tapered since opening on Sunday July the 13th when 300k chum were harvested. Openings are continuing but have averaged around 40k adult chum each opening. Hidden Falls will be open this Sunday (7/23) with same lines as this past Thursday. While the returns have tapered quickly since the 23rd we will still most likely surpass 1 million total chum return to Hidden Falls. We continue to make strong progress with chum egg takes at Hidden Falls and are currently at 80 million taken of our 198 million goal and have utilized 100k adults to date. Our estimate is between 80-100k chum remain behind the barrier net and immediately outside of it. We have temporarily closed the barrier net to determine daily recruitment to the bay and allow better estimation of numbers behind the barrier net. Net will likely be reopened on Saturday to acquire the remaining number of brood stock needed to complete egg take. This number is currently estimated to be in the 30k range.
Returns to SE Cove continue to track below forecast and we will most certainly be short of the necessary pounds to complete cost recovery. This shortfall in return numbers combined with the small size of chum salmon this year further compounds the shortfall we expect on our SE Cove cost recovery which may approach $2 million. This coming week is the historical peak for SE Cove returns so there is still hope for significant progress towards our goal. Currently we are at 26% of our SE Cove cost recovery goal. Unfortunately this means there will not be a SE Cove common property opening this year. We are also experiencing very poor chum returns to our Gunnuk Creek hatchery location and are looking at making up the hatchery egg take shortfall at Medvejie and if necessary Hidden Falls.
Deep Inlet chum returns continue to trickle in but we have passed the peak of the return there also. We continue to see an unprecedented number of 3-year old summer chum salmon returning to Deep Inlet and as of the 7/18 GN sample were 62% male and 63% 3-year olds. To date over 250k summer chum have returned and over half have been 3-year olds. The past few days reports of larger, brighter fish have been reported, indicating we are beginning to see the start of the fall chum return to Deep Inlet. We obtained a Sitka Sound Troll chum sample on 7/18 and should have that otolith information available Monday. This sample should be a good indicator of what is on the way to Deep Inlet for the fall chum return.
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