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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
Aug 16th-Return Update
This past weekend chum trollers have blown the previous harvest number records including: total chum troll harvest, weekly troll harvest, and total chum value to the troll fleet. Through Tuesday trollers have harvested over 600k chum from Sitka sound and another 80k from West Crawfish Inlet and Crawfish Inlet. The ~700k so far this year eclipses last years record harvest of just under 600k troll caught NSRAA chum. Last week (wk33) the trollers harvested a record 312k Sitka Sound chum. In all the total value to the troll fleet is now $5.9m. The recent poor weather seems to have reduced the catch rates for the troll fleet but there continues to be substantial effort in the Sitka Sound area with a moderate amount of effort in West Crawfish. This past Sunday the Deep Inlet seine harvest was over 100k fish harvested. Gillnet catch at Deep Inlet this week has been on the slower side but there also an ever increasing number of gillnet boats participating in Deep Inlet. It is looking more and more likely that this will be the peak week for Deep Inlet chum returns and there is more wet/windy weather in the forecast which tends to push fish into the inlet.
Cost Recovery at Crawfish Inlet continues. Monday a cost recovery harvest of 265k lbs occurred and there will be continued harvest on Wednesday of this week. Currently we are approximately 15% of the way through the cost recovery goal. Historically in Crawfish Inlet there has been a sharp increase in harvest this stat week. The last few days there has been an increase in cost recovery catch on the outer line of the SHA indicating larger numbers of chum are beginning to push into the inlet. Currently we are on track with the forecast for Crawfish Inlet but will need a substantial harvest by the end of this week to continue that trend. Last cost recovery sample from Crawfish Inlet was 72% male. Once cost recovery is complete Crawfish Inlet will open to common property seine harvest on the same daily schedule as Deep Inlet. Any seine opening in Crawfish Inlet will be announced with a 48 hour advance notice.
August 5-Return Update
The big news this week is the tremendous success trollers targeting chum salmon in Sitka Sound are having. Effort and catch rates began increasing last week and have continued to increase this week. Last week trollers ended up harvesting over 70k chum salmon and are on track to potentially top 150k this week, with a combined harvest of approximately 200k chum so far this season. The 2021 season was a record chum harvest for trollers in Sitka Sound with just over 500k harvested. Last year through stat week 32 (current stat wk) trollers had harvested 17k chum. This year chum trollers in Sitka Sound have harvested over 200k chum and the stat week isn’t yet complete. There is every indication that the chum troll catch this season could be another record year.
While the chum troll catch at West Crawfish is not as impressive as the Sitka Sound troll harvest, we are still three times the catch for the same stat week as last year. It is estimated that over 20k will be harvested by the end of this week. There has been a fraction of the effort at West Crawfish with 10-15 boats daily fishing there compared to the 70 boats plus that have been fishing Sitka Sound. The poor weather coming in this weekend will likely push more effort to West Crawfish and we will likely see that catch pick up next week.
In addition to good early chum troll numbers in both Sitka Sound and West Crawfish, the catch per landing during the current week is ahead of last year. This indicates there is a large volume of chum in the region as typically the bite is better for the fleet during calm sunny conditions. We definitely have not had much of that weather recently. The current weather system will likely push some fish into Deep Inlet and we may start to see an increase in the net fleets harvest in Deep Inlet. It is hard to believe but the combined net harvest in Deep Inlet to date is 125k chum, which means the trollers have caught nearly double the catch of both net fleets. Eventually the large body will move into Deep Inlet but the current behavior of the fish is certainly working in the favor of the trollers.
While the fall chum return is just ramping up the summer return is rapidly winding down. On Thursday of this week staff completed the summer chum eggtake goal of 190 million eggs with the majority coming from Hidden Falls (170m), and the remainder from Gunnuk Creek and Medvejie Hatchery. The seine fleet was able to harvest over 130k chum returning to Hidden Falls this year. The highest net contribution since 2018. With a strong number of 3-year olds in the return this year it looks like next year will continue the trend of increasing survival rates from chum released at Hidden Falls. We also saw a similar number of 3-year olds in the SE Cove chum harvest this season. After an extremely slow and late start, the summer chum return turned out to beat our expectations. Let’s hope that trend continues with the fall chum return to Sitka Sound and Crawfish Inlet.
July 29th-Return Update
Chum returns to our inside summer sites appears to have peaked and is beginning to wind down. Catches this week will likely be about half of last week at Thomas Bay, SE Cove and Hidden Falls but all are on track to meet or exceed our pre-season forecast. A first for the inside sites in many years. While the summer chum return to Deep Inlet is winding down, the fall chum return continues to show strong early numbers. The Deep Inlet net catches for chum last week quadrupled from week prior with an 80% male sex ratio on seine, gillnet and troll samples and are track to at least double again this week. Vast majority of our most recent Sitka Sound troll caught chum are age 4’s with a mix of 45% Bear Cove, 45% Deep Inlet, and 10% Crawfish Inlet bound fish. Sitka Sound/Eastern Channel chum troll catch is starting to look like it may be the largest troll harvest for this stat week in the history of Deep Inlet chum releases. With a projected 50k plus harvest this week alone. I anticipate that the timing of the summer troll closure, combined with the good Sitka Sound troll harvest rate, will translate to substantial effort over the weekend. We are updating our data pages frequently to provide the most current information, here is a link to the Deep Inlet page ( https://www.nsraa.org/?page_id=884 ).
Crawfish Inlet continues to be quiet, with no cost recovery effort or reported troll harvest. We will be taking a look at Crawfish Inlet this weekend with cost recovery and likely begin our Silver Bay brood stock management cost recovery early next week. We estimate around 10k fall chum brood have already made it back to Bear Cove, which is quite early for this large of a build. We will be performing a small harvest to collect sex ratio, and scale/otolith samples. This information is valuable to assist us in effectively managing the number of brood stock chum staging in Bear Cove. It is now clear that the fall chum return is early and/or going to be very large. Progression of catch over the next week will give us a better picture of the run strength but things are looking positive.
SOUTHEAST COVE – EXTENSION
The Southeast Cove Terminal Harvest Area (THA) season will be extended for one week through Saturday, August 6, 2022. The weekly gear group fishing rotations will remain effect for all gear groups (Sunday/Thursday for purse seine, Tuesday/Wednesday for drift gillnet, Monday/Friday/Saturday for troll).
See announcement here
July 22-Return Update
Returns this past week for summer chum salmon continue to increase to all our release sites. Yesterday (Thursday) there was the first opening at Hidden Falls for chum in several years. It appears the 2022 chum return to Hidden Falls will be the best since 2018. We continue to see a high proportion of Hidden Falls chum in the Point Augusta common property openings as well as the ADFG Point Gardner test fishing efforts. The last Point Gardner test fishing, on July 19th, continues to be above the long-term average for this time of year. SE Cove also continues to see a steady harvest of chum with the catch this week likely surpassing the 5-year average. It is beginning to look like we will come close to our forecasts for most of our inside summer chum salmon release sites.
At Hidden Falls this week we had another large increase in the average number of pounds of chum per set in the test fishing results. This increased our confidence in meeting our brood stock goal and limited opportunity was provided on Thursday. Currently we are 25% through the Hidden Falls chum egg take and still need another 150k adult chum to complete our egg take goal. Daily recruitment into the lagoon and up that ladder remain strong allowing for daily egg takes in the 7-10 million/day range. Hidden Falls will again open to seine this Sunday, July 24th, with a moderate increase in area. The THA from Greystone (Cosmos Pt) north and White Cliff south will be open. Please review the ADFG seine announcement for specific latitude lines. It is likely that additional open area will be provided next Thursday assuming brood stock recruitment maintains current daily rates.
In the last several days there has been an increase in catch at Deep Inlet on the early portion of the fall run chums. Additionally trollers have begun to target chum in the Eastern Channel and outer Sitka sound area. There were an estimated 30 working the area on Thursday with moderate success. We will be sampling this troll catch to ascertain origin of these chum. It is likely a majority will be bound for Bear Cove which is what we saw last year and the high survival of returning 3 year olds. To date most of the early fall run chum in Deep Inlet are age 4. It will be interesting to see how this return develops over the next week.
After a very disappointing first 3 weeks to the summer chum returns it is good to see the numbers approach forecast and provide some additional opportunity to the fleets.
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