The district's total king run is around 4,000. While it's still early in the season, managers say that if the numbers stay low they will implement more conservative management heading into the sockeye fishery.
Fishermen in the Nushagak District may face more conservative management this season due to low king salmon returns.
Staff with Fish and Game caught enough fish to complete apportionment Wednesday -- one day earlier than last year. The sonar started counting on June 6, and the Wood River tower began counting at 8 a.m. Thursday.
The Wood River's daily escapement Thursday was 3,372. As of 6 a.m. Friday, 1,158 fish had passed the tower.
On Wednesday, the sonar counted about 879 kings, and on Thursday the count was 429. The total king run is 4,061. Area Management Biologist Tim Sands said those numbers mean the run is small or late.
“The big number we are looking at right now is the king number," he said. "We are behind the number on the king number -- we should be well over 5,000, and we are below that,” he said.
The sockeye run is tracking a bit higher than normal. The sonar counted almost 21,793 reds Wednesday and 27,225 Thursday, for a total of 58,509. Chum escapement was 928 Thursday, for a total of 3,557.
It’s still early in the season, and Sands said one big day of king escapement could catch them back up. But if the numbers stay low, Sands said the department would implement more conservative management.
“Conservative management is: We’re gonna wait longer to have our first opening, we’re going to have shorter openings for both the drift fleet and the set net fleet. We’re going to try to make sure we have gear out of the water every tide, and if we can skip tides we’ll skip tides,” he explained.
Fishermen wouldn't have gear in the water during those skipped tides, so fish would have time to swim through the district unhindered.
Sands also noted that subsistence fishing on Dillingham beaches was slower than expected Wednesday evening, so he expected lower escapement counts heading into Friday.
This story has been updated with Thursday's escapement numbers.
Contact the author at stephanie@kdlg.org or 907-842-2200.
