Sockeye salmon Archives - Page 16 of 18

ALASKA: Kenai River dipnetting to close early due to low sockeye returns

July 27, 2018 –The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is closing the Kenai River personal use dipnet fishery starting 12:01 a.m. on Monday, July 30, citing less-than-expected returns.

The fishery would normally have ended on July 31.

ADF&G says the closure is necessary to meet the sustainable escapement goal of 700,000 to 1.2 million late-run sockeye salmon in the Kenai River–a goal officials say “may not be met without a reduction in harvest of this stock.”

The order says that additional restrictions on commercial and sport fisheries are also being implemented.

Read the full story at KTUU

ALASKA: Bristol Bay harvest hits 39 million, but statewide take down by a third

July 27, 2018 –Alaska’s salmon fisheries continue to lag alarmingly in several regions, with overall catches down by a third from the same time last year.

The single exception is at the unconquerable Bristol Bay, where a catch of 39 million sockeye so far has single-handedly pushed Alaska’s total salmon harvest towards a lackluster 60 million fish.

It’s too soon to press the panic button and there is lots of fishing left to go, but fears are growing that Alaska’s 2018 salmon season will be a bust for most fishermen. Worse, it comes on the heels of a cod crash and tanking halibut markets (and catches).

State salmon managers predicted that Alaska’s salmon harvest this year would be down by 34 percent to 149 million fish; due to an expected decline of pinks.

But with the exception of Bristol Bay, nobody expected fishing to be this bad.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

With Strong Run and a Big Increase in Boat Prices, Bristol Bay Harvesters Get Big Payday This Year

July 27, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS –KDLG has been surveying processors in the Bay to get this year’s sockeye salmon prices, and the result shows a big jump in the overall value of the fishery this year.

Both Trident and Ocean Beauty have confirmed base prices of $1.25 per lb., and prices go up for fish that has higher quality handling such as being chilled, floated, and bled. These fish get $1.40 per lb.

Copper River is paying a premium for chilled, bled, and separated sockeye, from $1.30 to $1.70 reports KDLG.

Meanwhile, Icicle, Togiak, and Peter Pan have not released base prices.

Last year’s base price in the Bay was $1.00, for a harvest of 38.8 million fish. This year, harvests reached 38.2 million, higher than the preseason forecast, and these numbers still may be adjusted.

The upshot is the sockeye fishery is likely worth about 25% more than last year, and as Bristol Bay is such an important part of overall Alaska salmon value, this run will go a long way towards making up some of the shortfall in other areas in terms of overall value.

But that is small consolation to those communities where the sockeye run failed or came in way below expectations, such as Chignik, and along the Copper River.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

Alaska salmon catch down by a third in most regions

July 25, 2018 — Alaska’s salmon fisheries continue to lag alarmingly in several regions, with overall catches down by a third from the same time last year.

The single exception is at the unconquerable Bristol Bay, where a 37 million sockeye catch so far has single-handedly pushed Alaska’s total salmon harvest towards a lackluster 60 million fish.

State salmon managers predicted that Alaska’s salmon harvest this year would be down by 34 percent to 149 million fish; due to an expected shortfall of pinks. But with the exception of Bristol Bay, nobody expected fishing to be this bad.

Catches of sockeye, the big money fish, are off by millions at places like Copper River, Chignik and Kodiak, which has had the weakest sockeye harvest in nearly 40 years.

The weekly update by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute said that coho and Chinook catches remain slow, and while it is still way early in the season, the “bread and butter” pink harvests are off by 65 percent from the strong run of two years ago.

Read the full story at National Fisherman

Salmon scales tell researchers a lot about the fish returning to Bristol Bay

July 16, 2018 — Across Bristol Bay, scales from fish are being picked, licked, and stuck on cards to be sent to researchers. The reason? To figure out the ages of the salmon making their way up the rivers during the run. One researcher has spent almost 30 summers examining scales and figuring what fish are head where.

Cathy Tilly puts a thin sheet of plastic over a paper card with rows of fish scales on it and then places it into a hydraulic press.

She described the process, “then I can start pumping the pressure up and we go up to 25,000 psi and count to 15.”

It takes that much force to make imprints of the scales in the plastic.

She continued, “Okay and then we use a dump valve to lower the clayton. Pull these metal plates out. Peel it up and what you are left with is an impression of the fish scales.”

After pressing the scales, Tilly takes the small card with the impressions and examines it underneath a microfilm reader.

She said, “Most people describe them as looking like a thumbprint or as tree rings.”

Tilly is figuring out the age of a salmon. Like trees, salmon have rings on their scales that show how old they are. Tilly looks at these markings that indicate the fish’s growth to figure out how many years they spent in freshwater rivers where they were born and how many they spend in the ocean.

Tilly and one other person age all the scales collected from the Bristol Bay sockeye run. That means they each look at tens of thousands of scales in a summer.

Read the full story at KDLG

ALASKA: Size of Bristol Bay Run Will Be in Upper Range of Forecast, Likely 50-55 Million Sockeye

July 11, 2018 — SEAFOOD NEWS — The most recent Port Moller Test Fishery catches plus escapement data indicates this year’s total Bristol Bay sockeye run (catch plus escapement) will likely be at least 50-55 million.

The magnitude and timing of the world’s largest salmon run changes with each day’s data, but the most recent minimum estimate would put the 2018 season in the top two, since 1997. Bristol Bay’s largest run since 1997 returned in 2015 at 58.8 million sockeye.

That was the total run. The harvest from that run in 2015 was 37.9 million sockeye, the second largest since 1997. The following year, in 2016, Bristol Bay pegged the largest harvest in 20 years at 39.4 million.

With a total catch to date of 16.6 million and the assumption that the run is still building, the final catch numbers could well be above the mid-point harvest forecast of 37.59 million sockeye.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game gives a range for the total run in the bay, and a point estimate for the total catch. The 2018 run size ranges from 40.7 million sockeye to 61.9 million. The harvest point estimate is 37.6 million sockeye.

Dr. Scott Rayborn’s latest interpretation of the data, written last Saturday, July 7, indicated that the run should “build inshore through about July 12 before tapering on July 13-14.”

“We expect the daily catch and escapement will bounce around these daily projections, but if on average it is correct, then the total run would be 47 million by July 14,” Raborn said. That is well within the pre-season total run forecast range.

“We will need to know what the remainder of the test fishing indices look like to see how big the tail may be beyond July 14,” he explained. “We only predict the catch plus escapement (C+E) that is between Port Moller and the inshore districts.”

Catches in the Nushagak District account for the lion’s share of the bay’s landings so far. Over 14 million sockeye have been caught to date, with 3.4 million fish landed in the other districts.

The total catch for sockeye from all areas in the state is now just over 19.4 million salmon.

This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

For Alaska sockeye salmon, record highs in Bristol Bay, record lows nearly everywhere else

July 10, 2018 — Sockeye salmon catches often add up to half of the value of Alaska’s total salmon fishery, and the so-called reds dominate the season’s early fisheries starting in mid-May.

But sockeye catches so far range from record-setting highs at Bristol Bay to record lows nearly everywhere else.

For example, the Copper River sockeye harvest of just 26,000 is the lowest in 50 years. At Kodiak, just 212,000 sockeyes were taken through July 6, making it the weakest harvest in 38 years. Sockeye fishing at Yakutat has been closed due to the lowest returns in 50 years; likewise, fishermen at Chignik also have yet to see an opener.

Sockeye harvest levels at Cook Inlet and the Alaska Peninsula also are running well below average.

Fishery scientists suspect the downturns are due to the warmest sea-surface temperatures ever recorded running from 2014-2016, which likely depleted food sources before the sockeyes returned from the ocean this year as adults.

Read the full story at Anchorage Daily News

ALASKA: How ‘pickers’ and ‘lickers’ help Bristol Bay’s fleet

July 5, 2018 — Preschool teacher Hannah Hendrickson said there are two distinct duties for catch samplers working at salmon processing plants around Bristol Bay.

“People oftentimes nickname this job as the pickers and the lickers, so I said, ‘I’m not a licker. I’m only a picker!’ ” she said.

She’s talking about picking freshly caught sockeye out of huge, ice-filled crates so she can mark down their length and gender and weigh every eighth fish.

The licker is her colleague Deven Lisac. Across the table at Peter Pan Seafoods in Dillingham, Lisac was snipping off bits of fins and plucking out fish scales. Saliva’s a good enough adhesive to stick fish scales on the thick cards for their journey to the Department of Fish and Game laboratory in King Salmon.

“Grab the tweezers, and then you just give it a lick,” Lisac advised. “And that was fish No. 4, so it goes on slot four.”

The pair are part of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s seasonal crew tasked with sampling 240 sockeye a day from each district in the bay. They also sample 200 chums and 200 kings a week.

Read the full story at KDLG

ALASKA: Copper River crash will cost commercial fishermen millions

June 21, 2o18 — Copper River sockeye fishermen are facing historic low returns this year, prompting some commercial fisherman to target other species elsewhere in Prince William Sound, and leaving others waiting onshore in what is usually a profitable fishery to the tune of $15 million or more in ex-vessel value.

Through mid-June, the commercial Copper River District drift gillnet fishery had landed just less than 26,000 sockeye salmon and a little more than 7,000 kings during three mid-May fishing periods. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game had expected a harvest this summer of nearly 1 million sockeye in the district, and about 13,000 kings. As the harvest stands now, it’s the second-lowest in the past 50 years.

The Copper River fish typically fetch a premium price as the first of the season, and this year was no exception, with prices as high as $75 per pound for kings at the Pike’s Place market in Seattle after the May 17 season-opening period.

But the district hasn’t re-opened after the first three periods because the sockeye returns are so poor, so the final value is likely to be far lower than the $20 million-plus the fishery often nets.

ADFG Area Management Biologist Jeremy Botz said it would take a significant improvement for the fishery to re-open.

Read the full story at the Alaska Journal of Commerce

ALASKA: The ‘blob’ impacts salmon numbers, stopping fishing on Copper River

June 15, 2018 — The Alaska Department of Fish and Game issued an emergency order Wednesday closing the personal-use and sport fishing for Copper River sockeye around Chitina until further notice.

The closure goes into effect on Monday, June 18th. Commercial fishing stopped on May 28th, and next week the department will determine how the low numbers will effect subsistence fishing.

Area management biologist, Mark Somerville calls the move “unprecedented.”

“It’s the second lowest on record basically in the last 50 years, pretty much since statehood,” Somerville said. “And there’s lots of different reason for it.”

Somerville says a mass of warm temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska and need for more food by the fish are to blame. “That’s the ‘blob’ thing,” Somerville said.

As of June 10, the Copper River weir shows that 154,866 reds have passed the counter since May 18. In the same period last year, 320,484 sockeye had swum up the river.

Alaska is famous for it’s Copper River salmon exports. Mega PR blitz signal the start of the season including Alaska Airlines flying the first fish to Seattle where eager chefs await it with outstretched arms.

The fish glistens with hard-earned fat, after swimming and eating across thousands of miles, from birth in the snow-fed waters of Alaskan rivers to the chilly sea.

Read the full story at KTUU