After a slow start to the season’s salmon runs, both sockeye and chum harvest are picking up.
A June 24 Hawk Inlet test fishery, performed by Juneau-based chum hatchery Douglas Island Pink and Chum (DIPAC), revealed dramatically low numbers of salmon. The fishery recorded only 38 chums, far below the ten-year average of 2,066, and 19 sockeye, with a ten-year average of 266.
Since then the runs have picked up. A Hawk Inlet test fishery performed Friday revealed both chum and sockeye caught in numbers slightly above the ten-year average. The chum catch reached 2,530 fish, above a ten-year average of 2,173, and sockeye were tallied at 301, with a ten-year average of 217.
“It’s quite a rebound,” said Eric Prestegard, executive director of DIPAC. “It’ll be a better catch this week, no question about it.”
Fish and Game Biologist Mark Sogge said that fish numbers were low, but had risen to within normal levels in the last few days. Since June 2, 10,500 sockeye had passed the Chilkoot weir. That figure is lower – but not drastically – than the ten-year average of 11,500.
“It’s looking like a good year, basically,” Sogge said. “There’s fish coming,” he said.
The catch was picking up for Haines fishermen, too, said resident and fisherman Norman Hughes. “(It’s) still not really strong, but there’s fish.”
The real indicator of this season’s fishery will come in two weeks, Hughes said, when fishermen will see if the run was late, or simply weak.
“We’ll see if there’s still fish coming, or if it’s over,” he said.