September 4, 2024 — Even though the final days of the sockeye salmon season in Bristol Bay hadn’t yet been fished, fishermen felt a mood swing reminiscent of last season in terms of what went into their wallets. To some, the prospects of fishing the Bay each season may come down to crunching out the cost of maintaining the commercial fishing lifestyle.
“I have a headline for this year’s Bristol Bay season,” texted a fishermanwho was running his boat toward the yard for dry dock storage. “More stagger than swagger as fishermen leave Bristol Bay.”
Last year it was the gut punch of low ex-vessel prices. This season’s base prices of 8o cents per pound among brick-and-mortar processors was slightly higher than last year’s 50 cents, and some of them bumped prices to $1.40 per pound for late fish in hopes of putting up a bigger pack. But for all sectors of the industry, the harvest volume just wasn’t there.
The total run forecast for the Bay in 2024 had been set at 39 million, which was down from the 10-year average by about a third. Of that 39 million, the harvest projections had been set at 25 million. This season’s harvest (preliminary) came in above the projections at 31.5 million.
As for the harvest breakdowns by district, the fabled Nushagak District hit 11.9 million. The Naknek-Kvichak District produced 9.1 million. Egegik came in at 5.1 million, with Ugashik District kicking in another 4.3 million fish.