Bristol Bay Fisheries Report

Another big harvest day Saturday in a weekend of banner late-season catch numbers for Naknek-Kvichak fleets. Total haul across the bay yesterday was 2 million fish. The total season catch is now at 33 million of a 44 million fish run. Though it remains to be seen how many fish are behind this shocking pulse, the season’s forecast is an estimated 51 million fish run. Escapement yesterday was 540,000.

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The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is tasked with managing data on the most productive wild salmon fishery in the world. That means managing an incredible amount of data - everything from tracking the enormous runs of tens of millions of fish, down to scales, size and weight of individual salmon. That individual data is collected by Fish and Game techs who go out each tide and sample hundreds of fish at the docks of the processors.

The total bay-wide harvest kept climbing after the surprising haul Thursday. Friday’s harvest was a staggering nearly 3 million fish, making it unequivocally the biggest haul of the season. Most of those fish came from Naknek-Kvichak, cementing some of the largest late-season catch numbers in recent memory. Escapement yesterday, though, was 706,000.

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The bay-wide catch slowed down some on Wednesday, but still almost half a million fish were caught yesterday. Almost half of that was in Egegik with 216,000 fish followed by the Naknek-Kvichak. The total run is now at 34.5 million.

Bristol Bay fleets had another strong harvest day Monday with 1.8 million fish caught bay-wide. The biggest catch was in the Nushagak, followed closely by the Naknek-Kvichak. Escapement is at 7.5 million fish, and the total bay-wide run is at 31.1 million.

Bristol Bay fishing crews saw a big push of salmon yesterday, putting their first "million fish day" of the season in the books. Fleets across the bay harvested over 1.5 million fish on Friday with Egegik and Nushagak crews banking over 600,000 salmon each and the Naknek-Kvichak district re-opening fishing in time to haul in almost 300,000. Total run in Bristol Bay is coming up on nine million.

We’re seeing jumpers in the Kvichak — in the numbers, that is. An estimated 700,000 fish swim upriver. In the Nushagak District, daily catch has topped 1 million fish in five of the last six days, starting with last week’s back-to-back record-breaking hauls. The district’s total run passed its 15-million-fish forecast.

There were several more openers around the bay yesterday. There was a big surge up the Wood River, which saw almost 100,000 more fish than on Friday. The daily catch passed one million for the first time this season, showing a stronger start than 2020.