The Chignik watershed is seeing a continued rebound this season, with sockeye runs on track to make escapement goals for the second year in a row. The Chignik runs saw a dramatic drop in 2018, and have been extremely low since then. It prompted concern and alarm from residents, and fisheries closures to help preserve the runs. And, while sockeye are coming back, chinooks are scarce in Chignik, and designated a stock of concern last year. KDLG’s Corinne Smith checked in with Fish and Game area management biologist Carl Burnside for the latest.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
KDLG: Thanks so much for joining us. So how are the runs looking in the Chignik watershed this year?
Carl Burnside: They're looking pretty good. About 200,000 more early run fish have come through between escapement and harvest, compared to last year. And last year was the first year they made escapement since 2017. Compared to pre-2018, it's still on the weaker side of things. But the run is also very, very late, like many other parts of the state. So it's still coming in pretty good right now.
KDLG: Then backtracking a bit, what do we know about why the runs have declined so much in Chignik?
Burnside: We mostly believe that it was a combination of both overlapping poor freshwater and ocean water conditions, to our best knowledge.
KDLG: For our listeners who may not be familiar, can you break down the early run and late run, and what are the character characteristics of each?
Burnside: So the early run fish are fish that mostly go to Black Lake, and they generally run from early June to mid July. While the late run fish are a combination of stocks that are mostly based out of Chignik lakes and its tributaries, and they generally go from mid June until the end of August and September.
KDLG: How are those runs looking for meeting their escapement goals?
Burnside: Looking great. It's likely right now the early run is already at its middle escapement objective, starting to trend towards the upper end of that escapement objective. We have a new OEG (optimum escapement goal) as of the last Board (of Fish) cycle of 300,000 to 400,000 fish. That’s compared to last year’s 350,000 to 450,000 fish BEG (biological escapement goal). It’s looking like a good chance that we will be at the top end of that escapement goal, if not maybe even a little bit over.
Late run is still very early on. But we're trending on the upper side of that right now. Although it's likely that it's late, and it's a little bit lower than what we are recording. But both boyfriends are doing great escaping wise right now.
KDLG: What year did those fish spawn, and how old they are?
Burnside: Yeah, so most of the earlier run fish are one threes - one year in freshwater, three years in the ocean. There are a lot of zero-threes and some one-twos as well. And so most of these fish are coming back and returning from 2018 and 2019.
KDLG: Wow, and so commercial fishing is open, can you talk a bit about that management and balancing these escapement goals with fishing this year?
Burnside: Yeah, so because the run was so late, it was really hard to tell what the strength of the run was like. We had kind of back to back days of higher escapement, in some days out of nowhere. Which let us we open the fishery up on June 29. And fortunately they are slowing the fish down, although not as much as I would like. Our fleet is pretty small still this year. But within the first week they harvested, over six days, about 120,000 sockeye. Yeah, right now, they're probably going to be extended for a little bit until the late run kicks in a little harder.
KDLG: How is the subsistence fishery doing?
Burnside: I don't have any direct reports, but just from my personal observations, people have been doing pretty good getting subsistence fish. For sockeye, at the very least. But chinooks this year are really struggling, unfortunately. And we did have to close down subsistence and sport (fishing) for that.
KDLG: Right, that was my next question. How are the king runs looking in the Chignik watershed?
Burnside: Unfortunately, like many other places in the state, it is very poor. It's lowest on record for the date right now, and not likely to meet escapement. They were designated as stock of concern this last Board of Fish cycle. So there's non retention in the Chignik Bay, central district and Castle Cape section for commercial (fishing) and like I said, subsistence and sport fishing were both completely shut down yesterday morning [July 5, 2023].
KDLG: What are the escapement goals for kings, and how are they looking?
Burnside: Yeah, so they're counted, just like our sockeye are. We also have a project we're working on doing a full enumeration via video review, but they're counted the same ways or sockeye are and they have an escapement goal of 1,300 to 2,700.
It's still early in their run, and most of the run up occurs from July 1 to about August 5, it's kind of the central 90%. Like I said, most things are late this year. So that's shifted back by a little bit. But unfortunately, we've only counted I believe 18 chinook as of right now.
KDLG: Wow, and how many years has subsistence fishing for kings been closed?
Burnside: Subsistence has been closed for the five of the last six years [2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023].
KDLG: Alright, we will continue to follow, thank you, Carl. We appreciate it.
Burnside: Yeah, thank you.
