April 26, 2022 — Alaska’s Department of Fish and Game has released their final “Run Forecasts and Harvest Projections for 2022 Alaska Salmon Fisheries and Review of the 2021 Season” and once again Bristol Bay is outdoing its own record of consistently massive returns.
The forecast for the statewide total salmon return is lower than last years by 800,000 salmon, but it doesn’t detract much from the forecasted run in the Bay.
The 2021 inshore Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run of 67.7 million fish is the largest total run on record — 64% above the 41.3 million average run for the latest 20-year period. It was also the third time on record that the sockeye run exceeded 60.0 million fish. Last year’s 42.0 million harvest was 15% above the 36.4 million fish preseason forecast and the third largest harvest on record. It was also the third time in the last 4 years that landings exceeded 40.0 million fish.