Send over pictures, thoughts, messages to the fleet to fish@kdlg.org or call 907-842-2200.
A visit to Wood River's counting tower
The Wood River’s been seeing a lot of fish so far this season -- its escapement is 15% of Bristol Bay’s total run. KDLG’s Stephanie Maltarich went to the counting tower today, and we talked to her when she got back.
BBNC's culture camp for high school students will incorporate subsistence at Lake Iliamna
A small group of Alaska Native high school students will meet in Bristol Bay next month. We spoke with the project director about the first year of a culture camp.
BBNC is one of KDLG's financial sponsors. That does not affect our coverage.
Messages to the fleet
Good luck to the crew on the Fish Hawk and set netter's on coffee point. Miss you all and be safe!! From the South Dakota crew
The numbers
The total run in Bristol Bay has reached almost 6.2 million fish. Yesterday’s daily bay-wide catch was 775,000 fish, which is a quarter of the 3.2 million fish caught so far.
Daily escapement across the bay came to 660,871 fish. Total escapement is at 2.9 million.
Nushagak District
Escapement around the Nushagak District was 540,175, bringing the total to 2.3 million. The district’s total run is at 4 million fish.
The fleet in the Nushagak District caught 325,000 fish yesterday. The district now has the highest total harvest in the bay, at 1.6 million fish.
Igushik set nets caught about 5% of the season’s total harvest, and Nushagak set nets caught around 16%. Nushagak drifters harvested the salmon's share, hauling in almost 80% of the cumulative catch so far this season.
Nushagak River
Daily sockeye escapement up the Nushagak River was 286,243 fish, which is the third-largest day so far this season. That brings the total to 1.4 million sockeye.
The Nushagak River Chinook count was 949 fish. The season total sits at 18,000 fish. The minimum escapement goal for the season is 55,000 -- more than double where the run is at now. Commercial harvest of Chinook is at 1,021.
Chum escapement came in at 4,802 fish. That puts the chum sum at 40,296 fish.
Wood River
The Wood River Tower saw its second largest escapement yesterday at 230,232 fish. Yesterday’s total was 942,108. As of 6:00 a.m. today, the tower has counted 40,926 fish.
Igushik River
The Igushik River tower started counting fish Saturday. Yesterday, 23,700 fish passed the tower. That’s just a bit under the total count of 24,090 fish. The tower counted 6,738 fish as of 6:00 a.m. this morning.
Togiak
No new numbers from Togiak. The total run there is still at 2,259 fish.
Naknek-Kvichak
The run -- and the harvest -- are starting to pick up in the Naknek-Kvichak District. The in-river estimate is 20,000, and the run is at 219,219.
Daily escapement hit 18,744 fish yesterday. The total escapement there is at 50,400.
Daily catch in the Naknek-Kvichak yesterday was 104,000, pushing the cumulative catch to 148,819 fish.
Kvichak set nets caught 21.4% of the total harvest, with 30% going to Naknet setnetters, combined they barely edged out drift nets at 48.6%.
Naknek River
Escapement up the Naknek was 18,486 yesterday, for a total of 50,088.
Kvichak River
The Kvichak tower has started counting: Yesterday, 258 fish escaped past the tower, bringing the total to 312.
Egegik
Daily escapement in the Egegik River yesterday was at 101,952 fish. The cumulative so far is 537,636.
The daily catch from Egegik was a whopping 307,000 fish, just behind the Nushagak’s harvest. Egegik’s total so far is 1.2 million fish caught.
Drifters in Egegik caught 76.5% of the total harvest, and set netters harvested 23.5%.
Ugashik
The Ugashik fleet has been out fishing as well. Yesterday, fishermen there hauled in 39,000 fish. The total harvest so far is 144,337.
Drifters caught 91% of that total, and setnetters caught 9%.
Chignik Weir Counts
At the Chignik River, 14,928 sockeye passed the weir yesterday. The total is now 141,030 fish. As of 5 p.m. today, 12,853 sockeye had passed the weir. The early run is now at 135,468. The late run is at 5,562.
Area M
Now for the daily harvest out of Area M yesterday:
96 kings were caught Sunday, bringing the total to 2,707 fish.
Sockeye harvest came close to 77,896 fish to push the season total so far to roughly 3.17 million fish.
Only five Coho were caught yesterday to bring the total to about 2,592 fish.
Pinks saw the largest harvest of the day at 110,066 fish. That total is a tick higher than sockeye at 3.19 million fish.
And finally, yesterday’s Chum harvest came close to 40,919 fish, which puts the chum sum at 767,771 fish so far.
Port Moller numbers
It took the Pandalus crew some time to finish the set at Station 10. That's because it had the largest catch index of the season at 393 fish!
The station index prior to this update showed the passage rate at Port Moller still building. But as Scott Raborn says, the sample helps confirm that a large band of fish is moving through the center of the transect.
Stations two and four reported zero catches yesterday.
Station 6 caught one in the 4 1/2 inch mesh and 0 in the 5 1/8. The catch index is 2.
Station 8 caught 83 in the4 1/2 inch mesh and 42 in the 5 1/8. The catch index is 192.
Station 10 caught 78 in the 4 1/2 inch mesh and 210 in the 5 1/8. The catch index is 393.
Station 12 caught 45 in the 4 1/2 inch mesh and 34 in the 5 1/8. The catch index is 148.
Station 14 caught 23 in the 4 1/2 inch mesh and one in the 5 1/8. The catch index is 53.
Station 16 caught 56 in the 4 1/2 inch mesh and 88 in the 5 1/8. The catch index is 222.
Station 18 caught 21 in the 4 1/2 inch mesh and three in the 5 1/8. The catch index is 45.
Station 20 caught 26 in the 4 1/2 inch mesh and 0 in the 5 1/8. The catch index is 52.
Stock composition estimate #5
The fifth set of stock composition estimates came in this afternoon.
About half of the fish sampled were headed to the Nushagak District -- 30% going to the Nushagak River, and 20% headed to the Wood.
Around 15% of the sampled fish were going to Egegik, another 14% to the Ugashik, 8% to the Kvichak and 3% to Nakenk. Around 4% of the fish were headed to the North Peninsula, and 2% to the Kuskokwim. Just .4% were headed to the Igushik and .3% were going to Togiak.
Permit registration on June 28 9:00 a.m. to June 30 at 9:00 a.m.
There are 1,187 boats registered in the Bay and 364 of those are D-boats. That will increase to 1,250 boats by Wednesday with 382 of those being D-boats.
In the Nushagak, there are 613 registered boats with 220 of those as D-boats. That will increase by just one on Wednesday to 614 boats, and D-boats will decrease by two to 218.
In Egegik, there are 317 boats registered; 94 of those are D-boats. By Wednesday, that will increase to 325 boats and 98 of those will be D-boats.
In the Naknek-Kvichak, there are 177 boats; 26 of them are D-boats. On Wednesday that will jump to 215 boats and 38 of those, you guessed it, are D-boats.
In Ugashik, there are 54 boats, 24 of which are D-boats. That will bump up to 69 boats and 27 D-boats.
Togiak’s fleet remains at 26 vessels through Wednesday.
Contact the fish team at fish@kdlg.org or 907-842-2200.
