This April, Silver Bay Seafoods announced it was partnering with former Bristol Bay competitor Northline Seafoods, just days after Northline’s CEO resigned. This sudden shift occurred just a few months before the start of the sockeye season, leaving fishermen feeling uneasy about Bristol Bay’s market diversity. KDLG reports:
Bristol Bay’s legendary salmon runs have inspired generations of artists, poets, musicians, and more, including Naknek set-netter Melanie Taikupa Brown. Brown is the lead vocalist and guitarist in the band Sunny Porch, alongside bassist Marcus Beckmann. Here’s Brown on how fishing in Bristol Bay inspires her music, followed by her piece “Salmon Song.”
Messages to the Fleet
No messages to the fleet tonight. If you’d like to send a message to the fleet, give us a call at 842-5281 or send an email to fish@kdlg.org.
The Numbers
The bay-wide catch on Thursday was 1,067,832 fish, bringing the cumulative catch to 22,050,130 sockeye; the catch forecast bay-wide is 32.26 million sockeye. Escapement yesterday was 637,041 fish, bringing the total run so far to 35,058,870 fish. The forecast this year estimates a total run of 44.05 million sockeye.
Nushagak
In the Nushagak District, fleets caught 245,464 fish on Thursday, for a total season harvest of 7,725,509, with an average drift delivery of 600 sockeye. 75% of harvest has been caught by the drift fleet, 21.9% by Nushagak set netters, and 3.1% by set-netters in the Igushik. The forecasted harvest is 13.9 million sockeye.
The total run this season in the Nushagak District is now 13,360,739 sockeye. Their pre-season forecast is an 18.39 million fish run.
Nushagak River
The Nushagak River sonar counted 16,173 sockeye on Thursday, for a total of 2,997,666 sockeye up the Nushagak so far.
The Nushagak River is estimated to see an 11.1 million fish run this season, and they are past their escapement goal range of 370,000 to 2.6 million fish.
318 Chinook passed the Nushagak River sonar; their total is 32,648 fish so far this season. The escapement goal range for those chinook salmon in the Nushagak River is 55,000 to 120,000 fish.
900 chum salmon passed the sonar yesterday, for a total of 160,745 fish.
Wood River
The Wood River tower crews counted 39,744 sockeye on Thursday, making their total count 2,310,336 fish, plus another 15,348 sockeye past the tower as of 6 a.m. this morning.
The Wood River is estimated to see a 6.43 million fish run this season, and they are within their escapement goal range of 700,000 to 2.8 million fish.
Igushik
Igushik crews counted 9,024 fish yesterday, for a total escapement so far of 327,228 fish, with an additional 3,588 sockeye as of 6 a.m. this morning. They have an estimated run of 890,000 fish, and an escapement goal range of 150,000 to 400,000 fish.
Togiak
In Togiak, 4,773 fish were caught yesterday; their total season catch is now 48,204 sockeye, with an average drift delivery of 75 sockeye.
The Togiak tower crews counted 1,080 sockeye on Thursday, making their total count 2,370 fish, plus another 758 sockeye past the tower as of 6 a.m. this morning.
The Togiak River’s forecasted inshore sockeye run this season is 530,000 fish, with an escapement goal range of 120,000 to 270,000.
Naknek-Kvichak
In the Naknek- Kvichak district, 209,525 fish were caught yesterday, bringing their total catch to 2,964,570, with an average drift delivery of 345 sockeye. So far, 21.9% of the district’s catch has been from Kvichak set-netters, 18.5% from Naknek set-netters, and 59.6% by the Naknek-Kvichak drift fleet. Their forecasted season harvest is 6.2 million sockeye.
Towers crews on the Naknek River counted 9,648 fish, for a total of 732,276 fish so far. The Naknek river has an escapement goal range of 800,000 to 2 million, and an estimated inshore run of 3.9 million sockeye.
Kvichak crews counted 230,538 fish yesterday for a total of 2,396,250 sockeye so far. That’s now within the Kvichak’s escapement goal range of 2 million to 10 million fish. The estimated inshore run for the Kvichak is 3.9 million fish.
Yesterday, Alagnak towers counted 106,026 fish, for a season total of 877,224 fish so far. The Alagnak River’s forecasted run is for 3.2 million sockeye, and they are past their minimum escapement goal of 210,000 sockeye.
The total run for Naknek-Kvichak is now 7,140,320 fish. The pre-season run forecast for the district is about 11 million fish.
Egegik
Egegik crews caught 341,092 fish yesterday, with an average drift delivery of 723 sockeye. Their season total catch is 7,058,821 sockeye so far. 83% of the harvest was caught by the drift fleet, and 17% by the set-netters. Their harvest is forecasted at 7.5 million sockeye.
86,586 spawners made it past the counting towers in Egegik yesterday, bringing the season’s total escapement to 1,642,992 fish so far. They are within their escapement goal range of 800,000 to 2 million fish.
Overall, the total run for Egegik is 8,751,813 sockeye, now just shy of the forecasted inshore run of 8.9 million fish.
Ugashik
Ugashik crews hauled in 266,978 fish yesterday; their season’s total catch is now 4,253,026 sockeye, with an average drift delivery yesterday of 1,587 sockeye. 88% of the catch was caught by the drift fleets, and 12% was caught by set-netters. The forecast predicts a harvest of 4.3 million fish.
138,222 fish were counted swimming past the Ugashik towers, bringing the total escapement to 1,102,398 fish. Their escapement goal range is 500,000 to 1.4 million sockeye.
The Ugashik total run is 5,755,424 fish so far, having now just exceeded the forecasted inshore run of 5.2 million fish.
Vessel Registrations
As of 9 a.m. this morning, in Egegik, there are 377 permits on 261 boats. That will decrease to 371 permits on 258 boats by Sunday, and the number of DBoats will drop from 117 to 114.
The Ugashik District has 340 permits on 229 boats, which will increase to 343 permits on 230 boats in the next 2 days. DBoats will go up from 111 to 113.
In the Naknek-Kvichak District, there are now 539 permits on 393 boats. That will have a BIG jump up to 626 permits on 456 boats by Sunday. DBoats will go from 146 to 170.
In the Nushagak, there are 324 permits on 237 boats. In the next 2 days, that will increase slightly to 324 permits on 238 boats. DBoats will move down from 87 to 86.
The Togiak District has 23 permits on 23 boats, which will stay the same in the next two days.
In total bay-wide, there are 1,603 active permits on 1,143 boats and 461 DBoats.
Chignik River Weir
At the Chignik River weir, 5,750 sockeye swam through the weir on Thursday, for a season total of 382,883 sockeye. 3,170 fish were part of the early run, and 2,600 fish were part of the late run.
Area M
Over in Area M yesterday, fleets harvested 56,490 sockeye for a season total of 3,624,526 fish.
2 chinook were caught, their total season harvest is 1,459 so far.
Fleets caught 17 chum on Thursday, for a season total of 516,425.
No pinks were caught the other day, their harvest is 1,381,281.
No Coho were caught on Thursday, their total is 1,480.
A total of 5,525,171 million salmon across all species have been caught in Area M so far this season.
Port Moller Test Fishery:
Port Moller’s 12th stock composition was just released this afternoon, covering July 8-9, and they say this will likely be the last estimates from the test fishery this season.
North Peninsula 0.6%
Ugashik 13.8%
Egegik 11.2%
Naknek 11.7%
Alagnak 12.3%
Kvichak 20.5%
Nushagak 9.9%
Wood 2.5%
Igushik 8.3%
Togiak 8.5%
Kuskokwim 0.7%
The Port Moller crew says more rough weather kept them from fishing those outer stations on the transect again. They say rough weather makes low catch indices harder to interpret, but the diminishing counts on the inner stations is a more sure sign of the trail of the run at Port Moller.
For Port Moller catches on Thursday, no fish were caught at Station 10. Stations 2, 16, 18, 20, 22, and 24 were not fished.
Station 4 caught 14 fish in the small net and 14 fish in the big net. That catch index is 56.
Station 6 caught 13 fish in the small net and 6 fish in the big net. That catch index is 38.
Station 8 caught 8 fish in the small net and 8 fish in the big net. That catch index is 32.
Station 12 caught 0 fish in the small net and 3 fish in the big net. That catch index is 6.
Station 14 caught 1 fish in the small net and 0 fish in the big net. That catch index is 2.
Overall, the average catch index for Thursday was 14. The average length of fish caught in the small mesh was 508mm, and in the big mesh, 540mm.
Get in touch at fish@kdlg.org.
