Robust salmon prices turned an average harvest into an above-average season for Haines gillnetters.
The surge in prices to their highest point in more than a decade is attributed to factors including the successful marketing of wild salmon and development of new salmon products, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and disease problems at fish farms.
“Price helps. You don’t need the numbers (of fish) to make a decent week, and obviously, that’s greatly received by the fleet,” said Steve Fossman, a local skipper for 30 years. “Hopefully prices will stay up for a while. Prices go up and down, but expenses only go up, the price of engines just keeps going up, so this is a better balance.”
Prices for all species except coho increased from last year and went higher than processors predicted at the season’s start. “Even deckhands made money. It was the highest price we saw in a long time. It made a big difference,” said Norman Hughes, captain of the Chilkat.
Salmon harvested in the local commercial fishing district totaled 1,013,626, worth an estimated $6.21 million for the fleet. The total number of salmon caught was up about 47,000 from a 10-year average of 966,241, due to bumper catches of pinks and cohos.
Harvests of sockeye and chum were down slightly from 10-year averages.
The single most significant price improvement was a 24-cent jump in the price of chum salmon per pound, to 74 cents. That increase alone brought $1.4 million to fishermen, based on a harvest of 675,600 fish. Hatchery chum represent about 70 percent of the value of the fishery.
Prices for sockeye also improved, to $1.76 per pound from about $1.30 last year. Fishermen netted 101,000 sockeye compared to a 10-year average of 112,684.
Mark Vinsel, executive director of United Fishermen of Alaska, said disease and a tsunami at Chilean fish farms factor into price increases, but the whole story includes marketing of wild fish that started a decade ago.
“There’s no single, silver bullet. It’s a question of putting a number of tools in the toolbox that can be used regionally and voluntarily,” Vinsel said. “You can die by a thousand cuts, but you can also be cured by a list of different remedies.”
A global demand for wild Alaska salmon figures prominently in the change, he said. “Ten years ago it wasn’t predicted that we would be able to differentiate our product on the world market, but now Alaska is a calling card. People understand sustainable. It helps sell.”
Besides “country of origin labeling” that now identifies salmon sold in U.S. supermarkets as “Alaskan” and “wild,” there’s a product development tax credit that’s encouraged processors to try new offerings that go beyond salmon burgers. “Right now there’s more demand for new Alaska salmon products than there is Alaska salmon.”
Earlier this year, officials with Ocean Beauty Seafoods said the tax credit, combined with marketing, was helping drive creation of new products including ones using pink salmon fillets and chum salmon.
With the size of pink salmon returns to other areas in northern Southeast diminished, the price for pinks went as high as 32 cents per pound. Most of the 171,029 pinks caught in the fishery came from Lutak Inlet, said commercial fisheries biologist Randy Bachman. “When fishing opened to the stream, it actually attracted people to go there and just catch pinks.”
Interest in pinks was sparked last year by a price of 24 cents per pound. Last year’s harvest was 163,000, more than double the 10-year average of 81,000.
Lynn Canal’s sockeye system’s again defied biologists’ predictions. The return to Chilkat Lake – projected to be lower than last year’s record return of 250,000 – notched an escapement of 60,000, short of the minimum escapement goal of 70,000 fish. Bachman said he was anticipating a return close to the 130,000 average.
“I was anticipating seeing a larger proportion of six-year-old fish because of the high numbers of five-year-old fish last year. The run started healthy but it faded in the first week of September, when six-year-olds are supposed to show up,” he said.
Well-below average expectations for the red return to Chilkoot Lake brought conservative management early on, and low returns in the first seven weeks of the fishery seemed to justify that approach. But in the last week of July, 30,000 reds went into the lake, pushing escapement to 50,000, racing past the lower escapement goal of 39,000.
A similar surge of fish in unexpected numbers occurred last year at Chilkat Lake, Bachman said “What does it mean? We don’t know. We don’t know why it’s happening.” On Chilkat and Chilkoot, fish seem to be coming in later in the season each year, he said.
A return of 40,000 reds returning to the mainstem of the Chilkat River was about expected for that run, he said.
The fall coho run roughly matched expectations that it would exceed projections. A harvest of 65,384 topped the 10-year average of 44,385.
Fishermen interviewed this week said the fall chum run was their biggest disappointment. A harvest greater than the 80,000 fish average was projected, but the take reached only 60,000. Poor survival from the 2006 brood year may have hurt the run, Bachman said.
“The Klehini River (return) was really poor,” Bachman said. The summer hatchery chum return was close to projections. Hatchery fish represent about 97 percent of the fleet’s chum harvest.
Good fishing in Lynn Canal attracted boats from other districts, with 202 different vessels plying local waters. That’s up from the 10-year average of 146 boats. The total went as high as 168 boats in mid-July.
“The history in recent years is that’s the week to be in Lynn Canal to catch chum salmon. Other hatchery chum releases don’t come until later in the summer,” biologist Bachman said.