Get in touch and share some perspective — give us a call at 907-842-5281 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.
Messages to the Fleet
To captain Sean Guffy on the Fishing Vessel Waterman–
Treasure lies where the stalks bend with the wind. # bluebird.
From, the Committee
The Numbers
So far, the total season catch bay wide is 30,795 fish.
Nushagak
At the Nushagak River sonar, fish counts are starting to pick up across species. 15,937 sockeye passed on Wednesday for a total of around 24,113 fish up the river so far.
1,779 Chinook passed the Nushagak River sonar yesterday for a total of 4,424 so far this season.
7,916 chum salmon passed the sonar, for a total of 13,209 thus far.
The Nushagak River is estimated to see a 3.5 million sockeye run this season, with an escapement goal range of 370,000 to 1.4 million.
For chinook salmon, the escapement goal range in the Nushagak River is 55,000 to 120,000.
Wood River
A good push of 22,584 sockeye passed the Wood River counting tower on Wednesday, bringing the total escapement to 25,590, with another 3,792 fish passing the tower as of 6 a.m. this morning.
The escapement goal range for the Wood River this year is 700,000 to 3 million fish, and the forecast is for around 7.8 million sockeye.
Igushik counts are scheduled to begin on June 23rd.
Togiak
Still no numbers from Togiak yet. The district’s escapement counts are scheduled to begin on July 5th.
The total inshore run for Togiak River sockeye is forecasted to be around 680,000 fish, with an escapement goal range of 120,000 to 270,000.
Naknek-Kvichak
Naknek and Kvichak fishing fleets hauled in their first commercial sockeye this week. No daily catch numbers are available from yesterday, but the cumulative catch so far this season is just 994 fish. The average drift delivery was 88 fish. So far, drifters in the Naknek and Kvichak Rivers have caught 38.1% of the season’s total catch. Setnetters on the Kichak have caught 56.5% of the season’s catch and setnetters on the Naknek have caught 5.3%.
Escapement counts are not in yet, but the Naknek tower crew started working on Monday and is expecting to have escapement counts starting soon.
The Kvichak tower crew should start counts on June 21st, and Alagnak escapement numbers will likely start coming in on June 29th.
An inshore run of approximately 15 million sockeye is expected across the Naknek/Kvichak district this season.
The Naknek River escapement goal range is 800,000 to 2 million sockeye. In the Kvichak River, the escapement goal range is 2 million to 10 million, and the Alagnak River has a minimum escapement goal of 210,000.
Egegik
No daily catch numbers are available for Egegik yesterday, but the season’s cumulative catch is at 21,941, with an average drift delivery of 94 fish. So far, Egegik drifters have caught 62.7% of the season’s total catch, and setnetters have caught 37.3%.
Just 48 spawners made it past the counting towers in Egegik yesterday, bringing the season’s total escapement to 90 fish so far.
The Egegik district’s inshore run this season is forecasted to be about 5.5 million sockeye salmon and the river’s escapement goal is 800,000 to 2 million fish.
Ugashik
No daily catch numbers are available for Ugashik yesterday either, but the season’s cumulative catch is 7,860, with an average drift delivery of 124 fish. So far, Ugashik drifters have caught 99.1% of the season’s total catch, and setnetters have caught 0.9%.
The district’s inshore run this season is forecasted to be about 4.6 million sockeye salmon and the river’s escapement goal is 500,000 to 1.4 million fish.
Ugashik escapement counts are scheduled to begin on June 27th.
Vessel Registrations
As of 9 a.m. this morning, in Egegik, there are 223 permits on 154 boats. That will increase slightly to 229 permits on 159 boats by Saturday, and the number of DBoats will increase from 69 to 70.
The Ugashik District has 104 permits on 70 boats, which will increase to 105 permits on 70 boats in the next 2 days. DBoats will go from 34 to 35 by Saturday.
In the Naknek-Kvichak District, there are now 45 permits on 38 boats. That will move up to 49 permits on 40 boats by Saturday. DBoats will increase from 7 to 9 in 2 days.
In the Nushagak, there are 38 permits on 43 boats. In the next 2 days, that will become 43 permits on 35 boats. DBoats will remain at a total of 8.
The Togiak District has 11 permits on 11 boats, which will stay the same in the next two days.
In total bay-wide, there are 421 active permits on 303 boats and 118 DBoats.
Chignik River weir
At the Chignik River weir, 1,113 sockeye swam through the weir Wednesday, for a season total just under 25,402.
An estimated 1,088 fish were part of the early run, and 25 fish part of the late run.
Area M
Looks like the fishing was light in area M yesterday. Those fleets harvested 1,071 sockeye on Wednesday for a season total of 379,432 sockeye.
Only 7 chinook were caught in Area M yesterday, bringing the total season harvest to 530 thus far.
No pink, coho, or chum salmon were caught yesterday.
The total harvest for pinks is at about 107,392.
The total for coho is just 7.
And the total for chum is just over 144,306.
The majority of commercial harvests this season have been caught on the South Peninsula by South Unimak and Shumagin Islands fleets.
Port Moller Test Fishery:
The test fishery crew analyzed 190 fish for the first stock composition estimate of the season, for June 17th and 18th.
The largest percentage of the fish sampled were swimming towards the Wood River – an estimated 35 percent were headed there.
About 19 percent of the sampled sockeye were swimming to the Kvichak River.
An estimated 16 percent of the samplings were on their way to the Egegik River, and 11 percent to the Igushik River.
And about 6 percent were heading towards the Ugashik River.
The estimate for the Naknek river is 5 percent, and about 4 percent for the Nushagak River, and 2 percent for the Kuskokwim River. Another 2 percent are headed to the North Peninsula, 1 percent to the Alagnak River, and less than 1 percent to the Togiak.
North Peninsula 1.5%
Ugashik 6.4%
Egegik 15.5%
Naknek 5.4%
Alagnak 1.9%
Kvichak 19.0%
Nushagak 4.1%
Wood 34.5%
Igushik 10.9%
Togiak 0.1%
Kuskokwim 1.6%
Test fishery crews reported Wednesday night that they are waiting on a few more samples to come in to produce the first estimates of average sockeye weight, so stay tuned for those numbers coming soon.
The crew reports that the run continues to build at Port Moller, with stronger catches at the outer stations today. They note a 60 to 40 split in today’s numbers between the smaller and larger mesh sizes. They say that indicates that the run is so far dominated by younger fish who have only spent two years in the ocean.
For Port Moller catch indices, the crew reports that the Research Vessel Ocean Cat had their set at station 2 cut short by marine mammals, their best guess for the culprits was a pod of Pacific White Sided Dolphins.
For Port Moller catches on Wednesday, no fish were caught at Stations, 2, 8, and 16.
At the following test fishery stations, the smaller mesh size is 4 ½ inch and the bigger mesh size is 5 ⅛.
Station 4 caught 14 fish in the small net and 1 fish in the big net. That catch index is 36.
Station 6 caught 10 fish in the small net and 0 fish in the big net. That catch index is 25.
Station 10 caught 0 fish in the small net and 2 fish in the big net. That catch index is 4.
Station 12 caught 19 fish in the small net and 10 fish in the big net. That catch index is 54.
Station 14 caught 4 fish in the small net and 15 fish in the big net. That catch index is 39.
Station 18 caught 36 fish in the small net and 4 fish in the big net. That catch index is 75.
Station 20 caught 46 fish in the small net and 0 fish in the big net. That catch index is 92.
Station 22 caught 2 fish in the small net and 0 fish in the big net. That catch index is 4.
Station 24 caught 0 fish in the small net and 2 fish in the big net. That catch index is 4.
Get in touch at fish@kdlg.org or 907-842-2200.
