Naknek set netter Harmony Wayner weighs in
The Naknek-Kvichak’s run is returning strong and steady.
Harmony Wayner, who set nets on Naknek Point, said the weather hasn’t worked in their favor yet.
“We're waiting for the wind to switch, the west wind brings fish into Naknek set net sites,” she said. “The east wind isn’t too good for our site at Naknek Point, hopefully it warms up and we get fish and meet our goal.”
Wayner noted that over the past few summers, warmer waters have made the fish slower and more sluggish. But with colder temps this season, that hasn’t been the case.
“The fish are acting pretty normal, we are just waiting for fish that are going up westline to Kvichack to come to Nacknek, seeing a lot of small fish indicative of Kvichak fish, waiting for ‘Naknek Slabs,’ the big ones, that only really get caught by the teeth.”
The colder weather has affected humans, too. Wayner misses the interesting tan lines she gathered over the past few sunny summers.
“I usually get quite the funny tan of just my face and maybe a little strap from my waders and a farmer's tan with long gloves, so a little patch on my shoulder,” she said. “No sunscreen or sunglasses this summer, which has a lot different than the past years of 80-degree weather.”
And there is some sunshine on the way.
Chignik's first opener geared toward pinks and chum
Chignik fishermen have their first commercial salmon opener of the season on Monday. The opener is for inland bays and areas with high numbers of chum and pinks, and relatively few sockeye.
The areas are in the Central, Western, and Perryville districts.
Area Management Biologist Reid Johnson says that in past years managers have opened those areas to allow fishermen to harvest some catch while still avoiding the bulk of the sockeye run.
“Tens of thousands of chum salmon were harvested in one of these bays, between three and five thousand pink salmon were harvested, and less than 50 sockeye salmon were harvested,” he said.
The early run for sockeye in the area will likely fall short of the lower end of the escapement goal of 350,000 fish. But Johnson says the late run has met its in-season escapement goals of 20,000 fish at this point in the season -- so far, 23,000 late run sockeye have escaped.
That late run escapement goal used to be 75,000 sockeye, but it was reduced to 20,000 at a Board of Fish meeting in 2019.
“It is still too early at this time to predict if the season ending late-run escapement goal of 220,000 – 400,000 sockeye salmon will be met, but all late-run interim escapement objectives have been met to date,” Johnson said in an email.
The commercial openers in the area begin Monday at midnight a.m. until Tuesday at 11:59 p.m. in Kujulik Bay in the Central District, Ivan, Dorner and Fish Rack Bays in the Western District, Ivanof Bay, Humpback Bay, and Perryville sections in the Perryville District.
Feel better, fishermen!
Millions of fish have been hauled in each day for the past week. But those fish don’t pick themselves, and all that action can be a real bummer for your forearms. Today, Dr. Cathy Hyndman walks us through some simple exercises to open up those carpal tunnels.
Coffee with Kenzie… with coffee
Coffee fuels the fishing industry just as much as diesel. On this week’s Coffee with Kenzie, Mackenzie Mancuso sits down with someone from the Shire. Not one of the Baggins, but Jesse Sherman, who helps his family run the hobbiton-themed coffee shop in Naknek, which has been open since 2009.
Messages to the Fleet
To the crew on the Kindred Spirit:
Hi Aaden and the rest of the Aaberg family in Ekuk:
Hope you all are doing well and staying safe! Marie misses you, Aaden, and she can’t wait to see you and hear all your stories from this season!
Shoutout to my son Brad, grandson Matt, Lars, Riley and Captain Ed on the Dan O. Catch lots of fish. Be safe. Teach Matt how to be a BB fisherman.
To Mark Prayter:
I wanted to wish my buddy Mark Prayter happy fishing on the F/V Equator. From V V R
The Numbers
The bay-wide catch is now at 38 million fish, and an estimated 705,000 fish are swimming up rivers across the bay.
Yesterday’s catch of 1.6 million was down quite a bit from its highs of the past week. The total catch is now around 22.9 million. Escapement yesterday was nearly on par with the harvest, as 1.7 fish swam up river. Total escapement this season is now 14.4 million.
Nushagak District
The Nushagak District saw its first harvest under a million fish in a week. The fleet harvested 865,000 fish yesterday. The average drift delivery was 709 sockeye. The Nushagak’s total harvest is 13.5 million.
Drifters have caught around 82% of that cumulative harvest, while Nushagak set netters have netted 11% and Igushik set netters have hauled in just over 2%.
Yesterday, 513,331 fish escaped in rivers across the district, for a cumulative escapement of 7.6 million.
The district’s total run is at 21.2 million fish.
Nushagak River
Sockeye are continuing to surge up the Nushagak River -- escapement was 209,815 yesterday. The Nushagak’s sockeye escapement has reached 4 million.
The Chinook run took another dive yesterday. Just 752 kings escaped up river, bringing the season’s total escapement to 45,270.
The chum run is coming along, as another 7,394 swam up river yesterday, bringing the chum sum to almost 88,900.
Wood River
The Wood River’s salmon run was 245,298 yesterday, and another 30,414. The Wood River’s total escapement is at 3.2 million.
Igushik River
The Igushik River’s run is maintaining its pace -- 58,218 fish swam past the counting tower yesterday, and another 6,888 escaped as of 6 a.m. today. The total escapement there is at 456,594.
Togiak
Togiak’s daily haul was 18,000 for the second day in a row, bringing the total catch to almost 82,851. The drift fleet hauled in an average of 224 sockeye per delivery yesterday.
In the Togiak River, 6,288 fish escaped yesterday, and another 786 escaped this morning. So far, 21,366 fish have escaped to the spawning grounds there.
Togiak’s total run is at 103,431.
Naknek-Kvichak
Fishermen hauled in 388,000 fish in the Naknek-Kvichak yesterday. The average drift delivery was 509 sockeye. The district’s harvest total is now at 3.4 million.
Of that total catch, drifters hauled in around 63%, while Naknek set netters caught 19% and Kvichak set netters harvested 18%.
1 million fish swam up rivers in that district yesterday bringing the total escapement for the Naknek-Kvichak to 5.4 million.
The total run there is at 9.4 million.
Naknek River
The Naknek River tower counted 131,406 fish swim up river, bringing the total escapement to 1.8 million.
Kvichak River
The Kvichak was the big winner in the district yesterday as 522,030 fish swam up river. That river’s total escapement is at 2.2 million.
The in-river estimate has dropped slightly from the past few days -- currently, around 600,000 fish are swimming up the Kvichak.
Alagnak River
352,320 fish escaped up the Alagnak River, bringing the total escapement there to 1.3 million.
Egegik
The Egegik fleet hauled in 393,000 fish yesterday bringing that season total to nearly 4.9 million. The average drift delivery was 780 sockeye.
Egegik’s drift fleet has harvested around 83% of the district’s cumulative catch, and set netters have pulled in around 18%.
Escapement up the Egegik came to 166,542 yesterday, for a total of 1.3 million spawning salmon.
The in-river estimate is 80,000 fish, and the total run for the district is now 6.3 million.
Ugashik
Ugashik didn’t fish yesterday, so the cumulative catch there stays at just under 874,863.
6,800 fish escaped up the Ugashik River, bringing the district’s total escapement to 45,954.
Chignik Weir
No numbers were available for Chignik today for July 8.
Chignik has its first opener scheduled for Monday. It is restricted to areas frequented primarily by pinks and chums.
The sockeye and Chinook runs up the Chignik River are still far behind the minimum escapements.
Area M
At Area M, fishermen harvested almost 200,000 sockeye yesterday, for a season total of 4.6 million. Pink harvest was way down with 4, that cumulative stays at 3.3 million. Yesterday’s chum harvest was also way down with 10 -- that total remains at 862,600. Chinook harvest also took a dive with fishermen harvesting 18 kings, for a total of 3,700.
Port Moller Test Fishery
At the Port Moller Test Fisher, conditions were similar to last week, and the vessels have been weathered off the water many times over the past few days. Neither the Pandalus nor the Ocean Cat were able to get out and fish today (7/9). But technicians think the next few days will be a little calmer.
Port Moller scientist Scott Raborn said a strong band of fish remains between Stations 8-12 indicating the tail of the run may not decline rapidly.
Raborn estimates current samples will be in Anchorage via the “Northern Route” through Togiak. Samples may arrive to Anchorage by tonight and the Stock Composition for July 7-8 could be released sometime tomorrow (if the stars align).
Catch Indicies:
Station 2 caught 0 fish in the 4 ½ mesh and 1 in the 5 1/8. The catch index was3.
Stations 4 and 6 caught zero fish.
Station 8 caught 84 in the 4 ½ inch mesh and 39 in the 5 1/8. The catch index was 284.
Station 12 caught 18 in the 4/12 inch mesh and 0 in the 5 ⅛. The catch index was 45.
Station 14 caught 16 in the 4/12 inch mesh and 1 in the 5 ⅛. The catch index was 39.
Station 16 caught 0 in the 4 ½ inch mesh and 14 in the 5 ⅛, the catch index was 32.
Station 18 caught 10 in the 4 ½ inch mesh and 6 in the 5 ⅛. The catch index was 38.
Station 20 caught 0 in the 4 ½ inch mesh and 11 in the 5 ⅛. The catch index was 24.
Vessel registration Friday July 9 9:00 a.m. to Sunday July 11 9:00 a.m.
This morning there were 1,266 boats registered in the bay, 375 of those were D-boats. On Sunday morning that number will take a small jump to 1,328, 394 of those will be D-boats.
The Nushagak continues to see a small decline. There are 505 vessels registered in the Nushagak District, 157 of those are D-boats. That will decrease again by Sunday morning, with 499 boats registered, 152 of which will be D-boats.
The Naknek-Kvichak will continue to see a small up-tick in the next 48 hours. There are 365 vessels registered to fish there, 89 of which are D-boats. That goes up to 418 on Sunday-- 108 of those will be D-boats.
Egegik’s fleet continues to decline with 254 vessels, 81 of which are D-boats. On Sunday morning, 251 vessels will be registered there. The number of D-boats remains at 79.
Ugashik’s fleet continues to grow with 110 vessels today, 48 of which are D-boats. In 48 hours, that will jump to 128 vessels, 55 of which will be D-boats.
Finally, Togiak’s fleet grew by one to 32 and will remain the same through Sunday.
Contact the fish team at fish@kdlg.org or 907-842-2200.