It’s not just you running behind on your summer chores – the sockeye and chum salmon seem to be running behind schedule as well.
“It’s early in the season to be panicking too much, I’m optimistic things will pick up,” said Nicole Zeiser, biologist with the Department of Fish & Game.
There have been three commercial fishing openers since the start of the season of two days each. During the first two openers, there were 114 boats that were actively fishing, Zeiser said.
The total number of sockeye to run through the Chilkoot River weir from last Friday was 281, well below the ten year average of 2,000. Zeiser expects an increase of sockeye at the weir in the next week or two. “It’s just looking like they are running late this year,” she said.
Numbers from the Chilkat Lake weir were slightly higher, but still below the ten year average, at 721 on Friday.
Commercial harvests early in the season are dominated by sockeye and chum, which were numbered at 2,000 and 67,000 respectively. Harvests of the other species were few and far between, but harvests of all salmon were below average so far.
The caught sockeye “look great, healthy, and fairly big,” said Zeiser, averaging 6.1 pounds. The harvested chum, on the other hand, were mostly four years old and extremely small, averaging 6.5-6.9 pounds.
Zeiser noted that the sockeye counts from the Chilkat River fish wheel are doing OK, but the chinook are below average.
“This is of some concern, but they could be running less as well. Chinook usually peak at Milepost 9 on July Fourth,” she said.