Three weeks into the Upper Lynn Canal commercial gillnetting season, fisheries managers say it’s off to a good start.
“It’s actually pretty good. It picked up quite a bit this week,” said Alaska Department of Fish and Game area management biologist Nicole Zeiser, referring to the week ending July 9. “The chum salmon harvest almost doubled from last week.”
The chum salmon come from the Douglas Island Pink and Chum hatchery in Juneau.
The sockeye harvest, Zeiser said, has not been as strong. “The sockeye harvest is still below average from this time,” Zeiser said. “However, the catch-per-unit effort did pick up.”
She said fisherman are again facing restrictions due to concerns over Chinook salmon stocks. Chilkat king salmon were designated as a stock of concern by the Alaska Board of Fish in 2018, and restrictions have been implemented every year since in order to preserve populations. They include reduced time and area, a six-inch-maximum mesh size restriction on nets, and night closures.
The pre-season Upper Lynn Canal escapement forecast for Chinook salmon was 1,500 large fish. That’s a slightly lower forecast than last year, said Zeiser. She said that falls below the escapement goal of 1,750 to 3,500 large fish.
Zeiser said so far this summer, two ADF&G monitoring projects — the Chilkat River fish wheels and drift gillnet projects — are indicating a “decent” run of Chinook salmon.
An average-to-below-average run of sockeye is expected in Chilkat Lake, while the department anticipates an average run to Chilkoot Lake, Zeiser said.
ADF&G estimates the Upper Lynn Canal harvest for the week ending on July 9 was 100 Chinook, 3,500 sockeye, 250 coho, 11,000 pink, and 120,000 chum salmon.