For commercial fishermen in Lynn Canal this year, size matters.

Department of Fish and Game biologist Mark Sogge said sockeye salmon returning to the Chilkoot and Chilkat rivers this week were a “healthy” weight, but it’s still too early to know if smaller-sized fish that diminished the value of the commercial gillnet fishery last year will return again this year.

Gillnetting begins Sunday at noon, with a two-day opening below Talsani Island and only on Lynn Canal’s east shoreline to protect Chilkat River-bound king salmon.

By Monday, 207 sockeye had passed Chilkoot weir and six reds had been caught in Chilkat River fish wheels.

Diminished size and reduced prices from processors last year delivered a double whammy to gillnetters, who saw the gross value of their fishery shrink to $4.5 million from $10.7 million in 2015.

This week’s Chilkoot returners were “beautiful, good-sized fish,” Sogge said, but that’s not unusual for the first salmon to return. “There are no indications yet we’re going to see small fish, but the explorers tend to be large. So what size the rest of the run will come in at we don’t know yet.”

Prices paid to fishermen won’t become known until next week, but Andy Wink, a fisheries analyst with Juneau’s McDowell Group, said gillnetters will likely see improved prices compared to last year, including for sockeye and chum salmon.

“Things are definitely improving, but they’re not back to where they were around 2011, 2013.”

Last year’s season-ending prices, per pound, included: 52 cents for chum, $1.19 for sockeye, and 75 cents for coho. That compares to the recent, high-water mark of 2012, when the canal fishery was worth $15 million and per pound prices hit 80 cents for chum, $1.46 for sockeye, and $1.29 for coho.

Wink said a 13 percent increase in the value of the Japanese yen against the U.S. dollar in the past year, reduced production at Chilean fish farms due to algae blooms and labor unrest, and low catches in Japanese fisheries all bode well for the chum prices here.

“There’s been a lot of good news. Market conditions have improved,” Wink said.

A forecast low return of sockeye to Bristol Bay and relatively high prices for Copper River reds this season portend improved prices for that species paid to Southeast fishermen, Wink said. “Things are pretty optimistic for sockeye prices.”

Most local boats next week will likely head to around Boat Harbor and Amalga Harbor, where as many as 1.6 million hatchery chum are projected to return this season, with as many as 1.2 million to be taken by the gillnet fleet.

The local sockeye forecast is mixed. Fish and Game’s Sogge said a return in the Chilkat sockeye parent year that fell below minimum escapement goals may make him conservative with openings on the canal’s west side. That run saw only 60,000 spawners, short of the lake’s targeted escapement of 70,000 to 150,000 reds.

However, sometimes smaller parent year returns at Chilkat spawn a relatively larger run due to more room and less competition for food in the lake, so a weak Chilkat return isn’t a forgone conclusion, Sogge said.

The Chilkoot run is promising to be productive, with a parent year escapement of 66,000 reds, midway between the escapment range of 38,000 to 86,000 reds. “We’re looking for an average return to the Chilkoot,” based on zooplankton densities in the parent year and good indicator numbers from last year’s run, he said.

Gregg Bigsby, a Lynn Canal fisherman for 40 years, said he’s optimistic about the upcoming season. “There should be a lot of fish and better prices.” Still, he has some concerns about last year’s small fish, that he fears were caused by warming ocean currents. “We could get that again this year. That’s a 25 percent hit right there. Everybody wants to know what the size is, but we’ll know a lot more after we get our nets wet.”

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