Fishing remains slow, chum returns ‘extremely poor’

Poor chum salmon returns combined with an uncertain sockeye run have gillnetters concerned.

“It’s disastrous,” fisherman Norm Hughes said this week.

He said he’s catching about the same amount every week, and not seeing the run build to a peak.

“It’s very humbling,” Hughes said. “I’d like to think I’m smarter than the fish, but maybe they’re smarter than me or maybe they’re just not around.”

According to Douglas Island Pink and Chum (DIPAC) executive director Katie Harms, the fish are just not around. DIPAC relies on fishermen, who are contracted to catch chums in special harvest areas, to pay for its operations. She characterized the chum run as “extremely poor,” and said that the smaller fish that are returning, combined with low prices, means the hatchery is $4 million under budget.

Harms said the only comparable year to 2020 is 2005, when the return was predicted to be poor based on that population’s poor rearing year release. “Nothing could have predicted what we are experiencing this season,” Harms wrote to fishermen this month. “With poor catches in Lynn Canal and Taku Inlet this week…there is little hope for a decent sized run to materialize.”

The hatchery is also struggling to collect the 135 million eggs they’re permitted to rear each summer, Harms said.

The sockeye run is also slow going, despite an above average run projection for the Chilkoot River, said Alaska Department of Fish and Game commercial fisheries biologist Nicole Zeiser.

Zeiser said she thinks the run is late. Escapement is projected to meet minimum goals for the Chilkat and Chilkoot rivers. On Monday, Fish and Game staff counted 21,000 sockeye through the weir.

Sockeye prices started at 90 cents a pound but increased to $1.50 at Haines Packing. Chum are selling to processors for 45 cents a pound, Zeiser said.

“We’re currently tracking to meet the escapement goal,” Zeiser said. “We’re sitting at about 45 percent of the run. Historically speaking (the third week of July) is the peak of the run. Those weeks change year to year. It still could be coming. I think the sockeye were running about a week late this year.”

About 9,000 sockeye have been counted at the Chilkat River weir. Zeiser said the Chilkat sockeye run peaks around mid-August.

Sockeye projections are based on parent year escapement, smolt estimates and zooplankton (fish food) observations.

Initially slow, subsistence fishing picked up last week and into this week. Craig Loomis said three weeks ago he caught very few fish, but fished in Lutak Inlet during the weekend’s rough weather and caught 25 sockeye in two hours.