Get in touch and share some perspective — give us a call 907-842-2200 or send an email to fish@kdlg.org. If you’d like to get a message out to the fleet on this show, send your messages to the fleet to fish@kdlg.org.
Egegik and Ugashik runs, with area management biologist Aaron Tiernan
Egegik fleets are leading in harvests baywide, with over half a million fish caught to date. We check in with area management biologist Aaron Tiernan with Fish and Game for the latest on Egegik and Ugashik runs.
Fish and Game boundary error
This spring the Board of Fisheries voted on a new line to mark the maximum offshore distance for setnets along Ekuk in the Nushagak District. Due to an administrative error by the Department of Fish and Game, part of that line was left out of the district’s management plan and map-making this year. In early June, the department issued an emergency order to correct it. What does this mean for setnetters at Clark’s Point? According to area management biologist Tim Sands, not much - there was an error, and the boundaries are the same. KDLG’s Jack Darrell sat down with Sands to explain the technical regulation change and the emergency order correcting it.
Setnetter voices
KDLG's Jack Darrell also caught up with longtime Nushagak Point setnetter Ole Olsen this week at the PAF boatyard in Dillingham, who talks a bit about how he first got started.
Food Friday
For KDLG's "Food Friday" we have a recipe from Jessie Rogers, a subsistence hunter from Dillingham. Last month, he brought some delicious beluga muktuk to a meeting, and KDLG’s Izzy Ross talked to him about his recipe ideas.
Messages to the fleet
To Capt. Doug Morgan, F/V Miss Emma
You should really floss more.
Capt. Zip tye
The numbers
Nushagak River
Sockeye counts in the Nushagak are starting to pick up.
At the Nushagak River sonar, 95,139 sockeye passed on Thursday for a total of 126,504 up the river so far.
The Nushagak River is forecasted to see an estimated 16.7 million sockeye return this year.
251 Chinook passed for a total of 10,677 so far this season.
And 1,025 chum salmon passed the sonar, for a total of 13,858.
Wood River
91,824 sockeye passed the Wood River counting tower yesterday - picking up significantly from Wednesday’s count. Another 8,352 fish swam up as of 6 a.m. this morning
About 8 million sockeye are expected to return to the Wood.
Igushik River
No escapement counts from the Igushik tower yet. The Igushik Tower crew went out on Thursday and will be setting up the towers today and counting by Saturday.
The Igushik’s forecasted return is larger this year at about 3.35 million sockeye. Togiak’s forecast is an estimated 700,000 sockeye.
Togiak
Fishermen in Togiak caught just 340 fish yesterday for a total catch of 2,011.
No escapement counts from the Togiak tower yet.
Naknek-Kvichak Rivers
In the Naknek and Kvichak Rivers, fishermen have caught a total of 12,397 fish to date. 1,745 of those were caught on Thursday. This season’s total escapement is at 288 fish. 78 of those fish swam upstream yesterday.
The Naknek is forecasted to see a 6.5 million sockeye run, and the Kvichak is expecting to see over 8 million fish. Alagnak numbers will start to come in next week. The Alagnak is forecasted to get around 4.2 million.
Egegik
Egegik fishing crews had a good day yesterday, hauling in 345,514 fish for a total of 588,397 this season. Yesterday, 12,054 fish swam upstream, bringing the season’s total escapement to 56,502 fish. The season’s escapement goal is over 800,000.
Egegik is expected to see around 11 million sockeye.
Ugashik
Fishermen in Ugashik hauled in 21,612 fish yesterday for a total catch of 60,792.
Vessel Registrations
As of noon today, in Egegik, there are 467 permits on 352 boats. That number will increase to 476 permits on 360 boats by Sunday. DBoats will go from 115 to 116 in the next 48 hours.
In the Naknek-Kvichak District, there are now 113 permits on 99 boats and the number of DBoats is 14, dropping down to 13 by Sunday.
The Nushagak District has 65 permits now, on 57 boats. In the next 2 days, this will increase to 210 permits on 156 boats. DBoats will increase from 8 to 54.
The Togiak District has 12 permits on 12 boats, and that will increase by one to 13 permits on 13 boats by Sunday.
The Ugashik District has 45 permits on 35 boats, which will also increase to 47 permits on 36 boats in the next 2 days. There are 10 DBoats, increasing to 11 DBoats by Sunday.
Chignik River Weir
At the Chignik River weir, 9,223 sockeye swam through the weir yesterday, for a total of 96,198.
An estimated 8,926 fish were part of the early run, and almost 300 fish part of the late run.
The Chignik's total escapement goal is 470,000 to 800,000.
Area M
In Area M, fishing fleets harvested 30,011 sockeye on Thursday for a total of almost 755,295.
119 Chinook were harvested yesterday for a total of around 1,596, pink total harvest was at 124,815 fish, chum were at 144,559, and coho were at just 20 fish.
A majority of those fish were caught on the South Peninsula, with the South Unimak and Shumagin Islands fleets hauling in 704,422 sockeye and 1,226 Chinook so far.
The Dolgoi island area has caught almost 2,984 sockeye total so far.
In the North Peninsula, around 48,889 sockeye and 369 chinooks were harvested by fleets in Nelson Lagoon and Port Heiden.
Port Moller Test Fishery
The test fishery crew analyzed 190 fish for the June 19-20 stock composition estimate.
The largest percentage of the fish sampled were swimming to the Egegik River – an estimated 36% were headed there. The range for that run is between 29 - 43%.
About 31% of the sampled sockeye were swimming to the Wood River. The range for that river is 22 - 40%.
An estimated 21% of the samplings were on their way to the Nushagak, which could see between 13 - 30%.
The estimate for the Kvichak is 6%. 3% are swimming to the Igushik, about 1% to the Kuskokwim, and less than 1% to the North Peninsula, Ugashik, Naknek, Alagnak and Togiak rivers.
North Peninsula: .5%
Ugashik: .2%
Egegik: 36.1%
Naknek: 0.7%
Alagnak: 0.4%
Kvichak: 6.0%
Nushagak: 20.9%
Wood: 31.0%
Igushik: 2.7%
Togiak: 0.2%
Kuskokwim: 1.2%
For Port Moller catches on June 22, no fish were caught at Station 2, 14, 16, or 18.
At the following test fishery stations, the smaller mesh size is 4 ½ inch and the larger mesh size is 5 ⅛.
Station 4 caught 1 fish in the small net and 20 fish in the big net. That catch index is 47.
Station 6 caught 0 fish in the small net and 4 fish in the big net. That catch index is 10.
Station 8 caught 22 fish in the small net and 25 fish in the big net. That catch index is 88.
Station 10 caught 7 fish in the small net and 0 fish in the big net. That catch index is 16.
Station 12 caught 0 fish in the small net and 1 fish in the big net. That catch index is 2.
Get in touch at fish@kdlg.org or 907-842-2200.
