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Bristol Bay Fisheries Report: July 5, 2020

Sage Smiley/KDLG

 

Fish are moving fast now, as the total run across the bay crests 8.5 million. Egegik brought in almost 700,000 fish -- the biggest harvest of the bay so far this season. The Naknek-Kvichak now has the most vessels in the bay. 

 

The daily harvest across the bay was 1.2 million, bringing the total harvest so far to 6 million. Escapement yesterday was 409,300, and the cumulative escapement is now 2.2 million. The in-river estimate is 210,000 and the total run has crested 8.5 million.

 

Numbers:

Nushagak District

The Nushagak District’s daily harvest was 165,000 yesterday, bringing the season’s harvest to 1.5 million. That was harvested 4% by Igushik set-netters, 26% from Nushagak set netters, and 70% from drifters.

In the full Nushagak District, daily escapement was 36,800 yesterday. That makes the total escapement across the Nushagak District 1,056,000 fish.

Breaking that down by river system….

Nushagak River

The Nushagak River sonar counted 6,100 sockeye up the river yesterday, bringing the sockeye escapement to 454,000. 80 chum also made it up the river for a chum escapement of 56,100. And the sonar counted 12 kings yesterday, bringing king escapement in the Nushagak to 34,070. 

Wood River

The Wood River counting tower crew counted 3,036 sockeye past the tower as of 6am, making total escapement up the Wood to 554,800 fish so far.  

Igushik River

The Igushik counting crew marked 2,100 fish past the tower as of this morning, making the total escapement 41,200.

Togiak

Togiak’s daily catch of 1,700 brings its total run so far to 11,613 fish.

Togiak is now on board for escapement. It counted 24 fish yesterday, and 414 fish as of 6 a.m. this morning.

Over to the east side now…

Naknek-Kvichak

The daily harvest for the Naknek-Kvichak District was 366,000 yesterday, bringing the total harvest in the Naknek-Kvichak to 1.8 million. That catch came 8% from Kvichak set-netters, 19% from Naknek set-netters, and 73% from Naknek-Kvichak drifters.

A total of 342,000 fish escaped across the Naknek-Kvichak district yesterday, for a total of 775,800.

Breaking that down by river now...

Alagnak River

The Alagnak River had an escapement of 762 bringing that season total to 34,100 fish.

Naknek River

In the Naknek river, 333,780 escaped yesterday. That brings the season total to 642,700 fish

Kvichak River

The escapement in the Kvichak River was 7,400 yesterday, bringing the total season escapement to 99,000 fish.

Egegik

Egegik had another big push in its catch numbers -- the fleet hauled in the biggest harvest of all districts so far this season. The daily harvest for Egegik yesterday was 694,000. That brings the season total to nearly 2.5 million. 89% of that was harvested by drifters, and 11% was setnetters. The escapement for the Egegik was 22,300, which brings the total escapement to around 426,700. 

Ugashik

There was no harvest for Ugashik yesterday -- the total harvest is 34,200. From the last catch, 67% is from Egegik drifters, and 33% from setnetters. Escapement there was 8,100, and the total is now 29,808. Ugashik's total run is at 84,000.

Chignik

Taking a look at Chignik, a total of 3,924 sockeye passed through the weir as of yesterday, bringing the total escapement to 93,395. The early run for the weir is at 87,155, and the late run is at 6,240. Zero pinks have passed through the weir, and a total of 12 kings have passed through the weir as of this morning, bringing the total king escapement to 146 kings.

Permit registration on July 5 9:00 a.m. to July 7 at 9:00 a.m.

As of 9 a.m. this morning there are 1,232 boats fishing across the bay, 350 of which are D boats. That will increase to 1321 boats on Tuesday, 379 of which will be D boats. Taking a look at how those are spread out, 

The Naknek-Kvichak is now in the lead with the most vessels, 32% of the fleet is currently fishing in the Naknek-Kvichak as of this morning, which comes out to 400 boats, 119 of which are dboats. On Tuesday morning, there will be 419 boats, 126 of which are D boats

Nushagak has 30% of the fleet currently fishing there. That’s 377 boats,  101 of which are dboats. Come Tuesday, that will change to 383 boats, 105 of which will be dboats.

In Egegik, there are 382 boats fishing, 120 of which are dboats. That’s 31% of the fleet. Egegik is going to see a jump in vessels on Tuesday with a total of 445 boats, 138 of which are dboats. 

In Togiak there are still 36 boats holding down the fort, come Tuesday that will not change. That’s just 3% of the fleet.

Ugashik has a total of 37 boats, 10 of which are dboats. This is 3% of the fleet fishing. On Tuesday there will be 38 total vessels, 10 of which are dboats. 

Port Moller

Below are the July 4 catch update and the raw data files. Catch indices stayed strong, which means reaching the preseason forecast is even more probable. 

 

On July 4, 31% of the fish were caught in the bottom 50 meshes of the 100-mesh net. In an email update, data analyst Scott Raborn said, "Had we used the shallower 60-mesh net from previous years, catch indices would have been roughly 75% of what was observed in the new 100-mesh net."

 

He added that this approximation does not take into account how salmon orient themselves when approaching the bottom edge of a gillnet, and that it assumes they hit the net at the depth they were originally swimming.  

The deeper net the Port Moller team is using this year has inflated the catch indices, but Raborn says that it will only improve the 2020 indices forecast the run’s pattern and timing, since intercepting more of the run, whether vertically or horizontally, can only improve the test fishery's accuracy. 

 

"The only drawback from changing the net is that historical catch indices are less comparable. Given we were missing more than half of the migration beyond Stations 10 and 12 in some of the previous years (as shown by last year’s data), this seems inconsequential," he says.

  

PMTF Stock Composition Status: The remaining genetic samples from July 3 (Stations 8-20) and all of July 4 samples will arrive in Port Moller tomorrow night. 

 

Station 4 has an index of 16

Station 5 has an index of362

Station 7 has an index of 393     

Station 8 has an index of 82

Station 9 has an index of 135

Station 10 has an index of62

Station 11 has an index of18

Station 12 has an index of 43

Station 13 has an index of21

Station 14 has an index of 25

Station 16 has an index of87

Station 18 has an index of 151

Station 20 has an index of 219